Review: Beloved (2010)
Steve Rhodes
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2011 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ***
In BELOVED, Katarina (Alicia Vikander) is a troubled twenty year old who
is still under Social Services care in Sweden. Her mother is an
obnoxious alcoholic, who suffers from mental problems. Katarina
worries, with some good reason, that others may think that she is crazy
just like her mother. Normally a taciturn young woman who bottles up
her emotions, Katarina does have anger issues. As the story begins, she
is about to be fired from her menial labor job at a cafe.
BELOVED, a consistently intriguing film by writer and director Lisa
Langseth, centers on Katarina's attempt to forge a completely new life
for herself. One of her recent passions has been listening to the local
symphony orchestra. Smiling doesn't come easy for her. Her face is
normally a visual conundrum, with its frozen and intense stare. It is
hard to tell if she is pondering some deep and important thought or is
extremely upset and about to explode.
Music alone is quite enough to produce small smiles on Katarina's
potentially sweet face. But music, combined with her new, but
provisional, position as the orchestral hall's receptionist, suffices to
make her happy enough to produce many little smiles, even though they
are unsure and a bit awkward. It is a dream job that she accidentally
gets through a case of mistaken identity.
Although Katarina lives with her boyfriend Mattias (Martin Wallstrom),
her loyalty to him proves to be tenuous. With something like a
schoolgirl crush on a teacher, she ends up setting her sights on Adam
(Samuel Froler), the orchestra's conductor. Of course, he's about twice
her age and has a wife and kids. Since Adam's loyalty is similarly
malleable, he has no problem in actively engaging in mutual flirting
with Katarina. When he takes her hand and pulls her into an empty small
performance hall, she has no reservations about consummating their
days-long affair, right then and there.
Remembering her emotional difficulties, you can believe that her view of
Adam's attachment to her will likely go bad if he ever breaks it off.
And you can bet, that his view of what they have together is much more
like a brief fling, one of many sexual intermezzos he's probably had.
The movie takes some fascinating turns at this point. I really liked
the characters, the acting and the story, but, even if didn't, I suspect
that I would still have liked the movie, since the many pieces by Bach,
Beethoven and other composers are fabulous.
BELOVED runs 1:38. The film is in Swedish with English subtitles.
The film is being shown as part of San Jose's Cinequest Film Festival
(www.Cinequest.org), which runs March 1-13, 2011.
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