Film: A Swedish Midsummer Sex Comedy
Release date: 31st January 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 85 mins
Director: Ian McRudden
Starring: Olle Sarri, Lisa Werlinder, Alexander Karim, Anna Littorin, Luke Perry
Genre: Comedy
Studio: Optimum
Format: DVD
Country: USA/Sweden
A Swedish Midsummer Sex Comedy falls within a tradition of light-hearted midsummer sex romps, beginning with William Shakespeare and given 20th century updates by Swedish doom merchant Ingmar Bergman and Woody Allen, that inveterate dissector of sexual neuroticism. Set in an idyllic lakeside location in rural Sweden, the film follows what happens when you mix up a group of friends, rural isolation, a bucolic summer festival and plenty of alcohol.
The brightly coloured Pop Art graphics of the opening titles sets the playful tone for A Swedish Midsummer Sex Comedy. Recently engaged couple Emil (Daniel Gustavsson) and Sussanne (Lisa Werlinder) invite friends to celebrate the festival of Midsommar with them at their beautiful lakeside house in the Swedish countryside. But the jollity of the festivities quickly becomes marred by tensions within the group.
Eva (Anna Littorin) doesn’t understand why her uptight boyfriend Patrik (Per Wernolf) no longer wants to sleep with her. Maria (Annica Bejhed) desperately wants to have a child, but her boyfriend Anders has just discovered he has a low sperm count and can’t bring himself to tell her. Pregnant Katarina (Kari Hamfors Wernolf) thinks her husband Micke (Alexander Karim) is boring and fantasises about her yoga instructor when they are in bed. Even seemingly perfect couple Emil – a suave Tim Robbins lookalike – and beautiful Sussanne seem to have ended up engaged by pressure of expectation rather than depth of feeling.
Thrown into this combustible situation of attractive individuals not having nearly enough sex is Sam (Luke Perry of 90210 fame), an American college friend of Emil’s, who is a womanising chancer keen to discover if Swedish women’s reputation for relaxed sexual attitudes is true.
The film’s predictable story arc follows the characters from the convivial celebrations of drinking and skinny dipping in the lake, through the inevitable emotional confrontations, uncomfortable revelations, and consequent reconciliation, although not necessarily with the results you’d expect…
The film is given a distinctive Swedish look and character by American director Ian McCrudden. Its rural setting is very pretty – all rustic charm and multi coloured clapboard houses, bathed in a cool northern light, conveying the pared down beauty of the Swedish aesthetic and landscape very well, and complimented by the indie flavoured soundtrack which works well with the film’s mood of gently melancholic introspection.
The associations of Midsommar with fertility, drinking and dancing round a big green pole make it a natural catalyst for the emotional/sexual mayhem which follows, although while there’s a smattering of full frontal running about, there’s less bed hopping than you’d expect from the film’s title. Stereotyped notions of Swedishness are played around with. Sam asks Emil if it’s true what they say about Swedish women – Emil’s reply, “What, that they don’t wear any panties in the summer?” takes Sam pleasantly by surprise. When Emil broods following an unexpected misfortune, Sam insists, “Don’t go all Swedish on me”. That sums up the clichéd notion of the Swedish character – free loving women and gloomy Bergman-esque men.
The film’s cross-cultural, dual language character works to particular comic effect when Emil launches a bitter verbal attack on individuals in the group, translated haltingly and drunkenly into English by Anders for the benefit of Sam. There is the occasional moment of slapstick – well that’s what can happen when you drink too many shots of brännvins – but mostly the comedy sits well with the uncomfortable realism of social awkwardness.
There’s little imagination been put into the characterisation, which is pretty sketchy, so it’s hard to become greatly involved with the characters’ predicaments. Despite this, the cast bring genuine warmth which gives believability to the bonds and tensions among the group. Olle Sari is particularly good as the hapless, would-be singer-songwriter Anders, endearing and clown like, while Daniel Gustavsson conveys the necessary gravitas of an alpha male who has an unexpected fall from grace. Luke Perry plays Sam with a nonchalant, opportunistic loucheness which acts as a good foil to the emotional complications within the rest of the group. There’s a shrillness and two dimensionality to some of the other characters, which is occasionally irritating and can give an air of artificiality, not helped by a patchy script which has intermittent flashes of originality marred by some plodding and uninspired lines.
The persistent lightness of the midsummer nights is reflected in a film which is light-hearted in tone but also light on substance and characterisation. Its particular strength lies in the Swedishness of its slant on the sex comedy genre, with a distinctive Nordic flavour and a knowing subversion of stereotypical depictions of Sweden. KR
