Show Me Love (1998, Lukas Moodysson) (Patreon)

70/100

Second viewing, last seen shortly after its 1999 U.S. theatrical run. Spent the first 45 minutes or so convinced that I'd sorely underrated it back then, wound up concluding that I'd slightly underrated it. (It's now on my unusually weak 1998 top 10 list, but 70 is still technically a B, which was my grade at the time.) What makes the first half so special, as I noted on Twitter, is the way that Moodysson continually foregrounds casual teen cruelty while retaining our empathy for every character; even Agnes, toward whom any non-sociopath would feel protective, lashes out at a classmate to a degree that's borderline unforgivable (and indeed the girl in question declines to forgive Agnes when she later apologizes). The film earns its deeply romantic moments, most notably the sudden backseat kiss that makes Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is" briefly go from diegetic to thunderous (though I'd forgotten how speedily this swoonworthy moment gets interrupted/undercut, which is a big part of why it works). And it's not as if the emotional complexity ever wholly vanishes—even during the climactic toilet-stall scene, Moodysson pauses briefly to register Johan's pain, despite never having previously given us any particular reason to like him. But it does ultimately get a little too triumphalist for my taste, suggesting a genuine connection between Agnes and Elin that I don't quite believe actually exists. Tried to interpret the final scene as an acknowledgement that there's no happily-ever-after here and couldn't find much. Also, it must be said that Show Me Love looks like absolute ass, not so much because it was shot on Super 16 (better that than late-'90s DV, certainly), but because Moodysson often uses available fluorescent lighting indoors, bathing everything in its sickly yellow glow; seems utterly indifferent to composition; and keeps zooming even more inelegantly than Hong Sang-soo. But that's hardly a dealbreaker given the forthright emphasis on script and performance (really wish that Rebecka Liljeberg, who's astonishingly guileless-yet-assured, hadn't quit acting soon thereafter; she last appeared in Sergei Bodrov's truly terrible 2002 film Bear's Kiss), and if this astringent charmer doesn't sustain that paradox for its entire 89 minutes, it still comes close enough to make most small-town teen romances look trivial by comparison.

Embarrassing confession: I didn't know who Robyn was in 2000 and was startled to now discover that "Show Me Love" is her song. Her sound has, uh, evolved.