Film Forum

Sweden, 1998
Directed by Lukas Moodysson
With Alexandra Dahlström, Rebecka Liljeberg
In Swedish with English subtitles
Approx. 89 min. DCP.

FUCKING ÅMÅL (the original title, altered to SHOW ME LOVE for distribution in less-risqué English-speaking markets), mutter Swedish teens of their one-horse town. But amid the boredom, Elin and Agnes, two high school girls on opposite ends of the social spectrum, find each other at a birthday party. Moodysson portrays, with devastating accuracy, the tedium, loneliness, and casual cruelty of adolescence, as well as the ebullience of young love. The film broke box office records in Sweden and swept its native Oscars, only earning its cult status in the US in the last decade.

Reviews

“TOTAL UTTER PERFECTION… The house parties, the Broder Daniel soundtrack, the unrequited love… everything a good film essentially needs. FUCKING ÅMÅL captures the bittersweet desperation of youth: a tragedy as it’s in the midst of occurring yet such a comedy in hindsight. It’s a totally endearing love story free of artifice — with an optimism rare for these sorts of flicks.”
– Oliver Skinner, IndieWire

“TRIUMPHANTLY SWEET in a way adult romances can never really be, perhaps because adolescent passion is so optimistic, unguarded by experience… Cued right at the swelling chorus of a particularly overwrought Foreigner single, Swedish director Lukas Moodysson's SHOW ME LOVE has the best stolen kiss in recent memory, an electrifying moment that puts a fine point on his keen observations about adolescent love. Like the use of Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" in SAY ANYTHING… or the Pretenders singles in WHATEVER—not coincidentally, two other great youth films—the song becomes part of a mix tape the characters create around their own lives, an ambience in which to savor intense emotions.”
– Scott Tobias, AV Club