The human faculty of judgement is fickle and unreliable. That was my point of departure as I, a while ago, sat down to re-watch Lucas Moodysson's Fucking Åmål, a film I first saw at the age of 18. 12 years later, I am still impressed by the smooth treatment of the story, the dedication to the characters and a good ear for how kids talk (plus: how hapless adults talk when they try to convince themselves that they mean what they say). The film has just the right kind of restless intensity. No LOL:s, no obvious jokes. Fucking Åmål still strikes me as a good attempt to depict the oppressive habitus of small-town life. Of course, Fucking Åmål has its "feel good"-moments, the application of the blueprint of what a movie about rebellious youth should look like. But Moodysson's film rarely feels like an adaptation of the rule book. It is a likeable film that never patronizes its young characters. Immaturity is never glossed over (this is actually a film in which kids don't talk like small business CEOs), nor is the characters' joy and hope portrayed as the cute yet capricious feelings of people too inexperienced to become jaded and world-weary.
By the way, films where teenagers play the main roles often tend to be written off as less insightful than films about older characters. This is a misconception. I'm not saying this is Shakespeare, it isn't. But it is too easy to fixate a pre-conceived idea on a film like this one. Another misconeption is that adult film-makers cannot make movies about teenagers without becoming creepy voyeurs capitalizing on the innocent lives and lusts of the young ones. Moodysson is no voyeur.
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