We are the Best
Composite Score: 81.6
Starring: Mira Barkhammar, Mira Grosin, Liv LeMoyne, Johan Liljemark, Mattias Wiberg, Jonatan Salomonsson, Alvin Strollo, Anna Rydgren, and Charlie Falk
Director: Lukas Moodysson
Writers: Lukas Moodysson and Coco Moodysson
Genres: Drama, Music, Comedy
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Box Office: $1.60 million worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
We Are the Best is a Swedish film about a trio of girls living in Stockholm in the 1980s whose goal is to form a punk rock band and prove to their peers/the world that punk is not, in fact, dead. Beyond its fun and relatively original premise, the film also provides a satisfyingly accurate depiction of life as an early teen, embracing the aimlessness and seemingly random events that tend to transpire at that age. Its depiction of friendship and celebration of the punk genre help make it into a film that is worth watching and revisiting. Its humor endears the audience to its three protagonists and helps connect them to a world beyond that of just pre-teens. The story ends up selling a universal message of following your dreams and remaining loyal to your friends.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
If you are not immediately sold by the concept of three girls with limited musical experience starting a punk band, this might not be the film for you, because that’s basically the entire story. The film pays solid homage to the punk movement of the 1980s, especially the Swedish branch of it; it focuses almost entirely on the three middle school girls, and it very clearly highlights the fact that, outside of Hedvig, the girls have absolutely no musical experience other than listening to it. Such an original concept is admittedly niche, and understandably so, making it potentially difficult for certain viewers to approach or buy in to.
One other issue that some viewers might have with We Are the Best is its many subplots, each involving at least one of the girls and only rarely having fully satisfying conclusions. The film’s subplots serve much more to flesh out Bobo, Klara, and Hedvig as characters as opposed to adding to the structure of the film’s overarching story of girls forming a band and becoming punk artists. Bobo’s and Klara’s short-lived relationships with Elis stand out as the exception to the rule, helping develop the characters’ relationship with each other in the process of having each of them fail to develop a romantic relationship with a fellow punk artist.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
As has already been stated, We Are the Best’s exploration of adolescent friendships has an accuracy that makes it eerily relatable to most audiences, even those with very limited punk experience. The girls all want to fit in with one another while remaining conscious of the pressures to fit in with the rest of the world as well. Klara rejects the pressure to fit in with non-punks; Bobo internalizes the desire, and Hedvig struggles with it, as her family is very Christian and, therefore, the antithesis of punk. Each of these responses to the pressures of the world to fit in are reminiscent of the ways different people react to such pressures during their own adolescent careers – defiance, withdrawal, and external struggle. Ultimately, the girls come through the other side as more fully realized human beings, more set in their ways and more comfortable with themselves and with each other. Perhaps one of the best moments of the film comes after Klara gives Hedvig a more punk haircut. Hedvig gets the haircut, knowing that her mother will most likely disapprove, and then withdraws from the group after her mother confronts Klara and Bobo, threatening to go to the police for “force-cutting” her daughter’s hair. Hedvig is okay with her hair but worried that her new friends will be upset for her mother’s behavior, causing Klara to believe that she does not in fact like the haircut and is mad at them. The confrontation clears up quickly, and the girls’ friendship is strengthened from it, again accurately portraying the pettiness and fast pace of the adolescent experience.
The film’s celebration of punk comes to a climax at the end of the film when the girls have the opportunity to perform at a winter exhibition in a neighboring town. After being introduced as a “girl band”, the trio gets onstage to a chorus of boos and vulgar insults from the crowd. The girls first play their original song, “Hate the Sport”, with very little response from the crowd other than more insults. In an act of sheer defiance, the girls then change the lyrics from “hate the sport” to “hate Västerås”, which is the name of the town where they are playing. This change causes the crowd to charge the stage as the girls continue to play, reveling in the vehemence that their lyrics have induced in the audience – a true punk victory. The girls leave the show exhilarated, as does the viewer, riding the high of a nontraditionally successful rock show.
A film that truly understands what it is to be punk and be a young teenager, We Are the Best, compels its audience to recall their own middle school days and friendships and to never give up on a dream. Its niche premise may not be for every viewer, but its heart and message of doing what you enjoy because you enjoy it rather than for profit or fame or anything else helps make it one of the Greatest Films of All Time and certainly a film worth watching.
