A Summer Tale

Ulf Malmros's 2000 Swedish film takes place in the summer of 1958, the summer Sweden lost the World Cup final to Brazil. Yngve Johansson agrees to take in two children for the season: Mårten and Annika. The story proceeds through Mårten's eyes. Yngve is hard on them, his rules are strict and both children keep their distance at first, while the problems Annika brings from her own past strain things further. As the summer goes on the balance between the three shifts. The film leans on nostalgia without prettifying childhood; what Mårten sees shows how fragile the adult world is. The football matches are the background that builds the Sweden of the period. It belongs to the Swedish tradition of family drama drawn from memory. Who it's for: viewers who like quiet Scandinavian drama and stories about childhood. Who it's not for: anyone looking for plot and pace; the film moves as slowly as a summer.