God Save the King (2005)

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

And with that I mean, I sat in a theater watching this movie, and within 10 minutes I was ready to leave, I don't know, I just couldn't relate at all with the story...The real confoundment came to me when leaving the theater (To this date, I have never walked out on a movie for better or worse) and my friends totally loved it. It was like I was watching some other movie altogether...Don't get me wrong with saying that and giving it a 3... I just think that I wasn't intended as part of the audience, because yes, it's beautifully shot. Yes it contain a bunch of exceptional characters, yes, it has some hilarious scenes and all that but the story never connected to me... I don't know, I just honestly don't know. It could be that all of the pal's that was at the theater had a background as struggling garage-bands. I didn't. You might love it...This all got to me as a surprise. I totally loved Malmros's last film, Smala Sussie, which had a wacky plot about movie-lovers/makers, a category of people that I feel included of, and I think I now can say that those that didn't love Smala Sussie probably was in the same seat as I am with this picture... I just don't get it. To me it was a movie about a struggling band with far too much Moodysson (a filmmaker that I never understood the greatness of) thrown in it... It's a shame and pity... I wanted to love it, but in the long run didn't care when the credits rolled...

It is 1984 and Abra is 19 years old and tired of the small village she lives in. However, events take her to the big town Gothenburg and adventures. The movie is charming and the characters sympathetic. For us who where teenagers in the mid 80's the movie is a journey back in time. All the groupings are there; punk-rockers, synthers, hard-rockers... and the soundtrack contains lots of representative music. The actors are all new faces in Swedish film and make a terrific job. Malmros has as always succeeded well with direction and camera. This is a true feel-good movie.Trivia: At the premiere in Gothenburg, the director Ulf Malmros was knocked down by a man who thought he had stood model for the nasty barman in the movie.

If you are familiar with Ulf Malmros' previous works, you know that a stylish movie about music and set in the 80s, is just up his alley. Malmros is without doubt Sweden's best director when it comes to using music to create mood. For Tjenare Kungen, he has been given an historically big budget to buy tunes for. The result is - of course - as good as anyone could have hoped. With everything from Alphaville to Thåström, Tjenare Kungen swiftly transfers us back to 1984. The entire movie is in fact an orgy in everything that made the 80s so special (?). A lot of time has been put into little - but oh so important - details like clothes and hair-cuts.As with Smala Sussie, Ulf Malmros has once again found a bunch of very talented debutants. Josefin Neldén (Abra) and Cecilia Wallin (Millan) are both extremely believable and lovable as the two girls forming a punk band. When you leave the theatre, it is impossible not to have a little crush on Abra.Tjenare Kungen is not ground-breaking in any way. It is a simple story that follows a formula proved to be good. It is not as heart-warmening as Den bästa sommaren, and the dialogue isn't as quirky and hilarious as in Smala Sussie. However, when you leave the theatre, you do it with a big smile on your lips. Knowing that you have just had one of your best cinematic moments this year.

The plot is simple; Abra lives in a small town not to far away of Gothenburg. She has a punk band and her dream is to release a single and become famous. The band splits up after a member of the bands boyfriend abuses Abra. On a concert in her village she meets Millan a stage re-arranger (roddare). After an unfortunate event she escapes with the band and lies about that she really lives in Gothenburg. But in some miraculous way they believe in her. She lies about some other things and gets to live with Millan. They start a band together and their goal is to release a single before Christmas. The year is 1984 The movie has a great soundtrack with old Punk songs. And the camera shots are amazing. One thing that I really hated about the movie was that the movie is as Swedish as a Swedish movie can be.When something is supposed to be sexy and in sex scenes we always see one of the woman's breast and the movie has a sugar sweet ending Malmros has done a great movie but a bit to Swedish and a too simple plot.