Lukas Moodysson is back! For fans of Show Me Love and Together, who have been left perplexed by the director’s work post-Lilya 4-ever, these are welcome words indeed. And for the uninitiated, what pleasures you have ahead!
The time is 1982 in Stockholm, and 13-year-old Bobo and her best friend Klara spend their evenings listening to punk rock on their Walkmans, speaking to each other on the telephone and being mortified by how uncool their parents are.
Restless and uninterested in the mainstream interests of their classmates, everything changes when an admin error at their local youth club sees them booting out the hairy older boys, and getting behind a drum kit, bass guitar, and most crucially, a microphone.
Based on a graphic novel by Coco Moodysson, the film captures an electric anarchist impulse that many audiences will recognise (even if some will have to dig deeper than others!), whilst never succumbing to nostalgia, or patronising the girls – something that is left to the well-meaning lefties who run the youth centre and cannot understand why our femmes aren’t perpetually grateful.
Certain to generate fantastic word-of-mouth, We Are The Best! is a cracking paean to friendship and the joys of making a racket.