Shed No Tears

Måns Mårlind's 2013 Swedish film follows Pål through a summer in Gothenburg as he dreams of making it in music. His largest obstacle is himself: obsessions as large as his talent keep pulling him into trouble. The film sits somewhere between romanticising the artist and taking mental illness seriously, and does not always manage to tell the two apart. Summer images of Gothenburg and the use of Swedish pop give the film a local texture, with the musical sequences staged as externalisations of the character's interior. Adam Lundgren's performance carries his charm and his destructiveness at once. The narrative weakness is that the people around Pål show him nearly limitless tolerance, and the cost of that is never quite visible. Who it's for: viewers who like Nordic youth drama and music-driven storytelling. Who it's not for: anyone troubled by mental illness being romanticised, or who will not be able to put up with the protagonist.