She Monkeys - review

An award-winning Swedish coming-of-age drama with an entirely abstract title
18 May 2012

She Monkeys? Apparently even the actors in this award-winning, Swedish coming-of-age drama don’t know what that title means. Which seems apt. Director and co-writer Lisa Aschan has created a portrait of childhood and adolescence that dazzles us with its mysteries.

The central characters are motherless sisters: clenched, 15-year-old Emma (Mathilda Paradeiser) and peach-soft, six-year-old Sara (Isabella Lindqvist). The latter, kitted out in a leopardskin bikini, asks the handsome babysitter to stroke her tummy. Meanwhile, Emma, desperate to succeed at horse vaulting (gymnastics on a cantering horse, an activity every bit as ludicrous as it sounds) starts hanging out with the competitive, unpredictable Cassandra (Linda Molin). Danger lurks in every scene, but who or what is under threat?

Both narrative threads are beautifully handled. Performance-wise, young newcomer Lindqvist is shockingly good. As with Anais Reboux in Catherine Breillat’s Fat Girl, you wonder if she even knows she’s acting.

Yet it’s the resolution of the rivalry between Emma and Cassandra that makes the film stand out. Cinema loves a catfight and wounded narcissists are 10 a penny (see All About Eve and Single White Female). But, here, there are no victims or baddies. Even as it acknowledges the pressure exerted by capitalism and prurient adult mores, Aschan’s story keeps the focus on three tremulous individuals. As you leave the cinema, you may feel a tad wobbly, too.

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