A beautiful waterfront house, a Swedish flag fluttering in the wind. A sailboat tied to the wooden deck below. This is the setting of the friends' annual Midsummer celebrations. The friends ... Read allA beautiful waterfront house, a Swedish flag fluttering in the wind. A sailboat tied to the wooden deck below. This is the setting of the friends' annual Midsummer celebrations. The friends are gathered at Emil's family house and the herring lunch, sauna, games and compulsory ski... Read allA beautiful waterfront house, a Swedish flag fluttering in the wind. A sailboat tied to the wooden deck below. This is the setting of the friends' annual Midsummer celebrations. The friends are gathered at Emil's family house and the herring lunch, sauna, games and compulsory skinny dipping are as always prepared. Expectations are set - Micke worries about his highly ... Read all
Featured reviews
This film being one of the proofs how hard it is the maintain a good balance.
The story is about a group friends(and one American) that decides to celebrate midsummer together in the Swedish archipelago. Everyones is planning to have good time but soon conflicts arise, truths are being told, lies exposed....
Setting a comedy drama during a holiday, and in this case one of the most biggest holidays in Sweden, is great choice because then you will have small group people to explore and create drama from.
Just like a wedding, Christmas, holiday trip etc. But problem here is that some of the script is uneven, flawed and doesn't give us anything new. There is some slapstick comedy that feels misplaced and wrong.
The dialogue is not as good as should been either. But the actors do their best, for example Olle Sarri Swedish comedian, who does his best in trying to be funny.
But that is not enough, when the script is so bland and so boring at times. With 4 screenwriters one would have expected more.
However, this film was more entertaining then the very overrated Sommaren med Göran - En midsommarnattskomedi/ A Midsummer of Love(2009), that critics hailed as funny drama comedy.
I only wished that the makers of this film had seen Ogifta par - En film som skiljer sig (1997), Adam & Eva (1997) or why not Bergmans old classic Sommarnattens leende/Smiles of a Summer Night (1955).
Had they seen these films they may have been finding a better balance between the comedy and drama bits in this film. Future viewers have been warned, watch with caution.
While the characters start off nearly stereotypical, and shallow, they quickly develop some interesting qualities and become very 'real'. We expected to movie to make certain twists and turns and each time the story took us the other direction making it impossible to not want to see how this turned out. Rarely do we laugh out loud at the same dialogue - and we did in this movie.
In the end, a very real story about life, love, friendship, and moving forward.
The movie is directed by a US director and maybe that has something to do with it. Not that US directors are generally worse than Swedish ones, but I get the feeling the director knows little to no Swedish and can't tell a good delivered line from a bad line. Because I refuse to believe they cast a complete ensemble of talentless actors, it must be the directing that is off.
It's cringe worthy to watch and only leaves you with a sad and uncomfortable feeling.
I'll add an extra point to the already low vote simply because the music in this movie is quite nice.
I felt the cast were tight and very easy going. The dialogue simple and got to the point without the expected Swedish delay if you know what I mean. It reminded me of The Big Chill... Sweden looked beautiful and exotic in my eyes. The director has made a funny and sweet movie, nice to see Swedes in a different light than what Bergman shared with us. Thank you, McCrudden, we needed that!
Did you know
- TriviaThe story takes places during a Swedish midsummer which is in June but the movie was actually shot in September.
Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official site
- Languages
- Also known as
- A Swedish Midsummer Sex Comedy
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- SEK 6,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross worldwide
- $224,154
- Runtime
- 1h 26m(86 min)
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1