Now we move from one coming of age love story
to another, only this time instead of being towards the end of young adulthood
we're towards the beginning of young adulthood.
SHOW ME LOVE was originally known as FUCKING
AMAL in its native Sweden. It takes place in a small town called Amal, and the
characters fear they'll never escape and see the world. So that's "Fucking
Amal" as in… "Ugh. Fucking Amal."
Anyway: this 1998 flick stars young actresses
Rebecka Liljeberg and Alexandra Dahlstrom. As the movie begins, shy Liljeberg
is on the verge of turning 16 and is afraid no one will show up for her
birthday party. She has a crush on the free spirited Dahlstrom, who is sick of
her small town and will go to any lengths to do something, anything that's not
boring. She desperately searches her house for drugs to take, for
instance, but only comes up with medicine for gas.
Boredom thrusts the two characters together
when Dahlstrom kisses Liljeberg on a dare and the two form an unexpected
friendship/relationship that helps both of them feel less alone, isolated and
stuck.
One of the strengths of this flick is its
youthful energy – because it concerns young kids who actually look like young
kids partying and having sex lives, and is shot on gritty 16mm, it brings to
mind the controversial KIDS. But, where KIDS is about how these kids don't know
what it is to be a kid anymore, SHOW ME LOVE/FUCKING AMAL is about teenagers
who are a little more relatable to your average viewer – they might talk big,
but they still go to school and go home to parents who try their best.
The innocence in the flick is part of what
makes it so appealing. Our young main characters think they're acting big and
tough but we can see that they're still just kids. It's like the young student
from A SUMMER'S TALE – you can see right through these kids, but you can't
really blame them because… they're kids.
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