If you could be sated with a one word review of Lucas Moodysson's latest, We Are the Best! (Vi är bäst!), that's be it. It is a solid 100 minutes of three young girls doing what young girls do when young girls want to start a punk band. An exuberant punk band!
Every sentence here deserves and exclamation mark!
Adapted from the graphic novel "Never Goodnight" by his wife Coco Moodysson, We Are the Best! follows Bobo (Mira Barkhammar), Klara (Mira Grosin) and Hedvig (Liv LeMoyne) as they fight the bland, pastel pop princesses and long haired rock misogynists of '80s Stockholm. There is not much to see here beyond scene after scene of infectious, rambunctious self-empowerment, but that is exactly what makes Moodysson's film so unique; it is driven by an entirely new engine - thirteen year old feminist polite punkers. It is rare to see a film so singularly focussed on young girls and put forward in such an honest, unaffected, non-didactic manner. It had me grinning from ear to punk-filled ear!
Moodysson started his feature film career with Fucking Åmal, another truly exceptional slice of adolescent life in Sweden. For fifteen years the clarity of that film's performances have burned bright, a reminder of how seldom film makers manage to capture youth on screen. Since then Moodysson's been wallowing in depressing, though critically acclaimed, experimentation. With We Are the Best! he proves his prodigious skills haven't diminished with age. Every ounce of his ability to capture the incandescent performances from young stars is up on the screen. I'm assuming with these three the trick is not to inhibit them. As I said, it's all about the exuberance!
It's a little disingenuous to call We Are the Best! a return to form but it is definitely a return to a clearer, happier style of film making. It is what Moodysson excels in and it is great to see he's now willing to let it out again. We Are the Best! is a gem that should not stay hidden. It may not be a film that's going to change the world but it may well empower the girls that will. Get out to see it as soon as you have the chance.
Take your daughters. Take your nieces. Gift tickets to random kids in the streets. Put it out there, only good can come of it!
★★★★
Trailer:
We Are the Best! screened at Sydney Film Festival 2014.
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