Simple Simon “I rymden finns inga känslor” (Andreas Ohman, 2010): Sweden

Reviewed by Rhys Davis. Viewed at the Arlington Theater, SBIFF 2011.

The first foreign film I decided to watch this year at the Santa Barbara Film Festival was Simple Simon. A romantic comedy about an 18 year old teenager named Simon with Asperger’s syndrome, who destroys his older brothers relationship with his girlfriend because of his eccentricities inside their home, and then sets out on a mission to find his brother a new girlfriend. I thought it was a great film with an original idea that intrigued the audience throughout its entirety.

The beginning of the film starts out with Simon’s mother yelling at him to get out of his home made space capsule. Simon hides in his capsule to escape his parents and other human contact. He has problems believing and understanding people and also does not like to be touched, even by his own parents. Simon imagines he is in space when he feels bothered, it helps him relax and become calm again. The one person he does trust and understand is his older brother Sam.

Simon moves in with Sam and his girlfriend, but things turn for the worst quickly when Sam’s girlfriend moves out because of Simon’s behavior. This messes up Simon’s life because he is used to routine. Sam set up chores and times for things to get done so Simon could have everything in order down to the second, and without Sam’s girlfriend to perform her tasks this messes up everything for Simon.

Determined to find a new girlfriend for his older brother  Simon uses numbers and science to try and find a perfect match for his brother. This throws Simon out into the open world where his guard is down. What Simon doesn’t understand and what becomes his ultimate voyage of learning is that people and more spefically love cannot be  converted into numbers and science. Director and screenwriter Andreas Ohman puts together a witty story that takes a serious illness and puts a funny twist on it, without making it classless. Simon ends up finding the perfect candidate, and that is where things get really interesting

When I first read the little excerpt on the movie in the festival booklet I did not think much about it, but when I saw that Sweden had nominated it for this year’s Foreign Film Academy Award I decided to give it a shot. I surely was not disappointed. Simple Simon proves to be a good film with an original screenplay. Bill Skarsgard, who portrays Simon does a very good job at bringing this character to life. The end of the film keeps you guessing till the end. I sure hope that this will be available to see in the U.S. soon.