We Are The Best “Vi ar Bast” (Lukas Moodyson, 2013): Sweden

Reviewed by: Timothy Petersson     Viewed at AFI filmfestival 2013

The drama film “We are the best” by Swedish director Lukas Moodyson is a heartwarming film telling the story of a group of outcast kids attempt of forming a band in spite of their bullies and maltreatment. The films concept in itself is very inspirational and a fascinating very well done journey back to the Stockholm suburbs of 1980.

The main characters are Hedvig (Liv LeMoyne), Klara (Mira Grosin) and Bobo (Mira Birkhammar), the whole premise of the film is built around the idea of what it means to be an outcast, to be bullied and to not quite fit in anywhere, and how these three girls find each other and a friendship that is stronger than the power of their bullies cruel remarks is formed. The three girls together decide to start a punk band, writing rebellious almost anarchistic songs about the things they perceive to be unjust.

With “We are the best” Moodyson does not only address bullying as an adhering issue however, the film goes even deeper and in a way questions the adhering role models of society, how girls have to be beautiful and in general how girls should follow the traditional role expectancies of what It means to be a girl.

The most fascinating part about the film however one could consider to be its production design. As being Swedish myself, the production value in terms of design is fascinating, watching the film it is very hard to grasp that the film was shot in 2012 and this year. Whole interiors have been remodeled to perfectly mirror Sweden as it looked in the 1980’s, and even trivial things like household products have the same packaging as in the 1980’s.

When looking at the tonality of the film and its lighting one could say it is very naturalistic high key, something one will see often in Swedish films. In terms of cinematography, the shots and editing together are very fluent in terms of continuity however nothing remarkable is to be said about it.

A soundtrack is not continuously employed however several Swedish punk rock classics are played throughout the film however do not always quite seem to fit in in terms of overlaying the editing making the music a less fluent element of the film.

“We Are the best” is without a doubt a certainly a heartwarming film and it does make good points in terms of its storyline urging the outcasts to stand up to their oppressors and societies stigmatization of them. However, at times the film focuses too much on conveying that message and so on occasion fails to draw in the viewer with boring dialog that does not have great entertainment value.