Monday, June 7, 2010

"Alla Alskar Alice" (Everybody Loves Alice)

"Alla Alskar Alice" (Everybody Loves Alice) is a poignant film that delves into the touchy subject of divorce stemming from marital infidelity and its effects on the children involved. Natalie Bjork plays the protaganist Alice in the film, pulling off the role of the hopeful, yet distraught preteen brilliantly.

Alice lives with her parents and younger brother Pontus (Bisse Unger) in a small town in Sweden. Alice is an avid soccer player whose most enjoyable past time is practicing the game with her father. He is, however, spending more and more time at work, which takes away from his time with his daughter. Alice, although often disappointed at her father's lack of time spent with her, is nonetheless ever hopeful that she will eventually become more important than work to her father.

As the film progresses the viewer eventually begins to discover that it isn't work that is distracting him from his duties at home, but rather a co-worker. To complicate the matter even more is the fact that the woman is the mother of one of Alice's classmates, Patrik (Anastasios Soulis), who lives just down the street.

Although Alice's mother is hurt and angry, she still appears to want to try to hold the family together and work things out, but Alice's father has made up his mind. He will be moving in with the woman and her son, and Alice and Pontus will visit him every other weekend.

As strong as Alice seems to be, the fact of her parents' separation and impending divorce is more than she can handle, and even after the whole town seemingly knows, she continues to deny the fact saying that her father is away on business. This causes more conflict when her best friend decides the truth needs to be told and begins to tell everybody. Alice has one teacher who can empathize with her and lends her a shoulder to lean and cry on.

There is a minor subplot involving Alice and a boy, Anton (Marcus Ardai-Blomberg), whom she has a crush on. "Everybody Loves Alice" is a superb film that deals with a tricky subject in a way that doesn't make it seem sappy or redundant.

Viewer discretion: there is one brief nude scene when Alice and her friends spy on the boys in the shower.

View screen caps here.

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