Somewhere in liberal-minded but boring Sweden, two teenage girls begin a rebellion. If the premise of Lukas Moodysson’s We Are the Best! sounds familiar, that’s because it’s roughly identical to that of the writer-director’s charming 1998 debut, Show Me Love.
As well as being something of a retread, We Are the Best! is a thematic retreat from its predecessor, Mammoth, a well-meaning if contrived globalization parable. Artistically, however, the new film is a rebirth. Lightly plotted but abundantly felt, it embodies the youthful high spirits of its protagonists.
Stockholm 7th-graders and natural born dissidents, boyish Bobo (Mira Barkhammar) and Mohawk-haired Klara (Mira Grosin) are drawn to punk rock — even though Klara’s older brother insists the movement is dead. (It’s 1982, and he now listens to Joy Division and Echo and the Bunnymen.) The girls decide to start a band on a whim, simply to aggravate the patronizing older boys whose heavy-metal group monopolizes the rehearsal room at the local youth center.
The facility has a drum kit and an electric bass; Klara appoints herself singer-bassist, leaving Bobo the drums. Klara just wrote a song that expands from the girls’ hatred of gym class to encompass such downers as nuclear power. But neither of them has any musical skill or knowledge.