| MovieSteve

The Crown Jewels aka Kronjuvelerna

2023-10-03 by Steve

If this is the age of helicopter parenting and the Young Adult (YA) genre is its cultural manifestation, then 2011’s The Crown Jewels (Kronjuvelerna in the original Swedish) is as good an Exhibit A as you’ll find in any case for the prosecution. Life is full, absolutely full, of bear traps and kids need to know about them. People can be horrible. Open water can kill. Boyfriends can turn out gay. Mums can die. Dads can lose their legs. Rape can happen any time. Insanity lurks. Make sure you turn the gas off. The story is told in flashback, from a Swedish police interrogation room where a kindly inspector (Tomas von Brömssen) wants … Read more

Barbarian

2023-01-23 by Steve

A young woman in Detroit for a job interview turns up at the Airbnb she booked online only to find that there’s there’s a man already in there. A double booking. It’s dark, it’s late and it’s raining and there’s a convention in town, so finding another place to stay is going to be a stretch. After several minutes of her wringing her hands and him shifting his weight nervously from one leg to another, he does the gallant thing – no, he doesn’t vacate and leave it to her, but he does offer her the bed. He’ll sleep on the sofa, he says. The bedroom door has a lock on it and … Read more