To State the Obvious: We Are the Best!

Christa and I have decided to take an international journey, and we may just never come back. This week, I picked We Are the Best! Not only because it’s about teen punk rockers, but because we are the best, which I think should be reflected in our film choices and blog post titles more frequently. See Christa’s review here!

The Film:

We Are the Best!

The Premise:

Swedish tomboys start a punk band with “the weird religious one” in the ‘80s.

The Trailer:

Okay, I was looking at my stats for the past year (almost!), and it appears the only video anyone has played is Peter Gabriel’s original song for Babe: Pig in the City. I can’t be your primary provider of Peter Gabriel content, people. So I quit. If you really want to watch a trailer for this film, use the fucking search bar on Youtube.

The Uncondensed Version:

Bobo and Klara, punks, tomboys, and all-around badasses, are 13-year-old best friends who don’t particularly fit in with the rest of their classmates. Girls their age are pretty damn mean, older boys are complete assholes (they call 13 year olds the c word. 13 YEAR OLDS), and teachers apparently do very little about any of this (I guess anything goes in Swedish schools).

I love that Bobo looks like a tiny university professor. Or, now that I think about it, kind of like Steven Coogan as Mole in The Wind in the Willows.

Instead of getting discouraged, Bobo and Klara remain confident…so confident, in fact, that they start a punk band despite total lack of any musical skills whatsoever.

Though both of the girls resent their parents equally (they’re 13, after all), Bobo secretly adores Klara’s close-knit family, whose father tries to jam with them on his clarinet and older brother gives Bobo hair-styling tips. Seriously, I might be a little in love with Klara’s older brother myself because he says her hair looks great as it is, but also teaches her to spike her hair.

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo damn cute.

Bobo is living with her possibly bipolar or at least majorly depressed mother, whose boyfriend Lasse (not Lassie) just broke up with her. I have never wanted to adopt anyone except maybe Bobo (okay, fine, also Billy Elliot). She offers to make her mom some tea or hot chocolate and reminds her eating is important.

So anyway…back to the band. The girls want to play their angry punk song about their gym teacher in the school’s fall concert, but all of the spots are full. Though the concert is basically what you would expect from middle schoolers, there is one really talented girl, Hedvig, who plays folksy/Christiany music on her guitar (and gets booed).

Bobo and Klara ask her to join their band…and by join they basically mean be the talent and teach them how to actually play their instruments.

Klara is kind of a jerk because she’s a proud atheist and keeps haranguing Hedvig about believing in God.

Hedvig is possibly the most patient person ever because she puts up with this and also teaches them how to play. She’s not even mad when they give her a punk haircut, though her mother is a different story. This all blows over and they have the cutest dance party ever.

I just love them.

They decide to get serious and raise money for an electric guitar by lying about having poor and/or drug addict parents. Women after my own heart, they buy ice cream and candy instead.

All of this is going rather well until the last third of the movie, in which the girls meet a boy punk band and Bobo becomes an awkward 3^rd wheel.

I didn’t like this part of the film, so I wasn’t paying the most attention ever. I feel for you, Bobo. Boys suck.

The Critique:

Based on the first hour or so, I would’ve given this film 5/5. I really felt for Bobo, and Klara was fucking hilarious. I wish this film had continued to focus on the friendship between the two, their developing friendship with Hedvig, and their family relationships. Instead, for the last half hour, we get this relationship angst that creates drama between Bobo and Klara, which fucking sucks.

Also, as a non-Swede, there are some cultural references that I don’t understand at all and I just kind of accepted are nonsense like whenever the Swedish chef speaks (sorry, Swedes).

The Rating:

 4/5 Pink Panther Heads

Because Bobo, Klara, and Hedvig are possibly my favorite teens ever. Girl power forever.

See what Christa, the Klara to my Bobo, thought of this one here at her blog!