Show Me Love (film)

Plot

Two girls, Agnes and Elin, attend school in the small town of Amal in Sweden. Elin is outgoing and popular, but finds her life unsatisfying and dull. Agnes, by contrast, has no real friends and is constantly depressed. Agnes is in love with Elin, but cannot find any way to express it.

Agnes parents worry about their daughters reclusive life, and try to be reassuring. Her mother decides, against Agnes will, to throw a 16th birthday party for her, and Agnes is afraid no one will come. Viktoria, a girl in a wheelchair, shows up and Agnes shouts at her in front of her parents, telling her they are friends only because no one else will talk to them. Agnes, overcome with anger and depression, goes to her room and cries into her pillow shouting that she wishes she was dead, while her father tries to soothe her. Viktoria leaves and Agnes family eats the food made for the party. Elin arrives at Agnes house, mainly as an excuse to avoid going to a different party, where there will be a boy (Johan, played by Mathias Rust) she wants to avoid. Elins older sister, Jessica, who comes with her, dares her to kiss Agnes, who is rumoured to be a lesbian. Elin fulfills the dare, and then runs out with Jessica, only to soon feel guilty for having humiliated Agnes.

After becoming drunk at the other party, Elin gets sick and throws up, while Johan tries to help her and ends up professing his love to her. Elin leaves Johan and the party, only to return to Agnes house to apologize for how she acted earlier. And in doing so, Elin stops Agnes from attempting to commit suicide. She even manages to persuade Agnes to return with her to the other party. On the way, Elin shares her real feelings about being trapped in Amal, and asks Agnes about being a lesbian, and believes that both of their problems could be solved by leaving Amal and going to Stockholm. On impulse, Elin persuades Agnes to hitchhike to Stockholm, a five-hour car journey away. They find a driver who agrees to take them, believing them to be sisters who are visiting their grandmother. It is while sitting in the back seat together that they first kiss for real. The driver sees them and, shocked at the behaviour of the two sisters, orders them to leave the car.

Elin discovers that she is attracted to Agnes, but is afraid to admit it. She proceeds to ignore Agnes and refuses to talk to her. Elins sister Jessica sees that she is in love and pushes her to figure out who it is. To cover the fact that she is in love with Agnes, Elin lies, pretending to be in love with Johan, and loses her virginity during a short-lived relationship with him. Elin eventually admits her feelings at the end of the film, where, after a climactic scene in a school bathroom, they are forced to out their relationship to the entire school. The film ends with Elin and Agnes sitting in Elins bedroom drinking chocolate milk and Elin explaining that she often adds too much chocolate until her milk is nearly black so then she must fill another glass with milk and mix it, and that her sister Jessica often gets mad that she finishes the chocolate. Elin has the last word saying "It makes a lot of chocolate milk. But that doesnt matter."

Cast

Title

The original title of the film, Fucking Amal, refers to the girls feelings about their smalltown home: in a key scene one of the girls shouts in desperation "varfor maste vi bo i fucking javla kuk-Amal?" (which roughly translates to "why do we have to live in fucking Goddamn dick-Amal?"). The title, however, caused problems in other countries, and so alternative, generic names were chosen by local distributors:

Political controversy

Even before the film was completed, it created controversy in the town of Amal itself. Local politicians campaigned to get the title of the film changed because they argued that it would show the town in an unfair way, and even undermine the town as an economic centre. Further pressure was brought on the makers of the film, the Film i Vast film studio, who are partly financed by Swedish local authorities, including Amal. However, the local complaints had no effect on the content or release of the film. Since the release of the film the town of Amal has even tried to embrace the publicity generated, despite the fact that the towns name is missing from the English title. Still, in the early 2000s the town founded the pop music festival "Fucking Amal Festival".

Critical and commercial response

The film received the highest audience figures for a Swedish film in 1998-9, with a total audience of 867,576, and a total audience for the whole of Europe of 2,100,000. However, some reports outside Sweden incorrectly stated that in Sweden the film had even outgrossed the Hollywood film Titanic. In fact, Titanic had over twice as many viewers as Show Me Love in Sweden in 1998. Based on 39 reviews collected by the film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 90% of critics gave Show Me Love a positive review. The film is among the top ten of the BFI list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14.

Soundtrack

The films soundtrack was released through Columbia Records, and consists of songs in English and Swedish language. Swedish band Broder Daniel, who contributed three English language songs to the movie, saw a spike in popularity after the films release. The band also released an EP titled Fucking Amal.

Awards and award nominations