In urban Sweden in the late 1980s, two pint-sized, rebellious, short-haired girls form a punk band at their local youth club. This despite their general dearth of musicianship and the fact punk is dead (or so they are told again and again). They later enlist another girl from their school, a Christian as shy as she is blonde, after realizing she is a gifted guitarist. Directed by Lukas Moodysson (Show Me Love) with a relaxed and sympathetic eye, this is a modest, but very charming and observant coming-of-age film with a spot-on understanding of the glories and pains of forging an identity amidst peer pressures and diverse pop-culture influences. The trio of leads, each in her respective feature-film debut, create a convincing and vivid energy as they argue over their crushes, rebel against the adults in their lives, and try to perfect a hard-charging power-chord protest against the public's sports fixation. Their music never particularly coheres, but their untidily do-it-yourself ethos is as hard to resist as their friendship.

B+

I enjoyed this quite a bit too. Cute little coming-of-age movie though not as great as Moodysson's Lilya 4-Ever or Show Me Love.

8/10 (B+)