We Are the Best!


What we have here is an exhilarating blast of a movie, full of heart but still punk rock. So dont get all pissy because its in Swedish (with English subtitles) and you never heard of anyone in it and coming-of-age movies about girls make you puke. Girls gone wild? Thats nothing. Prepare to be wowed by girls gone punk. Thats dynamite. Director Lukas Moodysson (Together, Lilya 4-Ever), working from a graphic novel/memoir by his wife, Coco Moodysson, sets fire to clichs. Moodysson uses a time (1982) and place (Stockholm) to deliver a joyous fuck-off to all things bright and dutiful. Bobo (Mira Barkhammar) has attitude and Klara (Mira Grosin) sports a mohawk, but these budding rebels are stuck in the last place you want to be to start a revolution: seventh grade. They find an outlet in punk, forming a garage band with no idea how to play an instrument. They recruit shy Hedvig (Liv LeMoyne) mostly because she can handle a guitar (classical, yuck!). They scissor her hair into the shape they want their sound to bestripped-down and hardcore. Moodysson, a gifted filmmaker who excels at everything snotty and sublime about youth, never condescends to his female warriors. How could he? The three young stars are radically fierce and funny. As they defiantly perform their gym-burning anthem, Hate the Sport, to a chorus of yawns and boos, the result is a fabulous disaster. Its also pure punk anarchy. We Are the Best! is loud, crude, socially irresponsible and totally irrestistible.