Gossip (2000)

the audience applauded

Beautiful, moving film.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Glancing at the cast, my expectations were rightly sky-high, considering this film is a who's who of famous Swedish actors of the early 2000s. Talented director Colin Nutley has somewhat of a reputation of mixing very good films with complete disasters, and has also been subject to criticism because of his obvious nepotism by constantly casting his wife, Helena Bergström, in virtually all of his movies.Naturally she is cast here as well, together with Sweden's acting elite. The performances are very strong throughout, I would like to single out the performances of Lena Endre, Mikael Persbrandt, Peter Haber, Suzanne Reuter and Marika Lagercrantz as a notch above the rest. The rest of the cast performs admirably as well, and the casting really works.The main problem is the terrible source material. Since there are so many characters, there needs to be some element holding it all together, but it is lacking and it shows in a painful way, as the story lacks focus. Though some of the characters feel interesting and have a certain depth, the movie still feels superficial, and that's strange for a two-hour-movie. In addition to that, too many of the characters are hard to like, and it is hard to really connect. What saves the movie somewhat is the superb quality of the acting, but still it is not nice to see such talented actors being so sadly let down by the material.

I have seen this movie because I have heard this is "the new Swedish wave", "this is the hope for Swedish cinema". Well, if this is supposed to be hope for the Swedish cinema, then Swedish cinema is pretty hopeless. The movie is about problems of actors, lots of extremely boring dialogs about art, blah, blah, blah - a really depressing "commedy" movie that is supposed to be enjoyable or even funny. I have not found anything funny at all. Nothing much happens and absolutely nothing matters. 100% boring movie in is purest form. It probably requires some northern Europe genome in your blood to be enjoyed, I really do not understand how anyone be amused by something like this. Avoid it at any cost to save 2 hours in your life for something that really matters...

I really don't know why people rated this film so low. Have they seen the same film as I have? The film is so good!I only speak little Swedish, so I'm glad the Swedish DVD has subtitles in English. But they seem to work because I love this film so much! Not only the crème de la crème of Swedish actors and actresses are in this little gem together, the composition of the whole film is just great. The editing works brilliantly. The music inclusive the "song on TV" is well chosen, everything about this film is just right. What more can you ask for? I can warmly recommend it to everybody who loves the Swedish language, good jokes, crazy situations and acting.8 out of 10. Or maybe 9? Yes, 9 out of 10.

The plot itself isn't really worth the trouble queueing for tickets, but la crème de la crème of Swedish actresses in one film are.Margaretha Krook is, as always, doing a splendid performance. Her outstanding skill to act with dignity will never be beaten by anyone.