A Swedish Midsummer Sex Comedy   Starring: Luke Perry, Lisa Werlinder and Alexander Karim Optimumu Home Entertainment RRP: £15.99 OPTD2045 Certificate: 15 Available 31 January 2011

When Emil invites his closest friends to a midsummer celebration, his plan to crown the moment with his own special surprise backfires with semi-tragic results. The arrival of Sam (Luke Perry), Emil’s American friend, with his own expectations of Swedish liberalism acts as a catalyst which makes the party guests re-examine their lives and relationships...

A Swedish Midsummer Sex Comedy (2009 - 1 hr, 25 min, 45 sec) is a Swedish film, directed by American director Ian McCrudden.

It would be wrong to portray this film as an outright comedy, it isn’t. The film does have some moments where the humour is drawn from a particular characters embarrassment, such as when Anders (Olle Sarri) asks Emil (Daniel Gustavsson) for a cup of his sperm as he has just discovered that he has a non-existent sperm count and does not wish to disappoint his wife; or of the prat-fall type, including Anders propensity for knocking himself out on the flagpole whilst drunk.

The film is really about relationships, the ones which work and the ones which have died long before the couples are willing to face the truth. On release, it did get some negative reviews and after watching the film I’m not really sure why. As a comedy, rather than a comedy of manners and relationships, it’s not a laugh out loud affair, but then it is slicker than a lot of recent American comedies, which tend to be crass or vacuous, Midsummer is thankfully neither.

Although parts of the film are painful to watch, only because the characters and plot are believable, the actors do a good job of drawing the audience in, so I actually found myself caring what happened to the group, mostly because there is a bond and warmth between the characters which holds them together, even when their relationships are shifting.

Without trying to give too much away Emil has invited his best friends to a surprise wedding, which turns out to be one surprise too many for his girlfriend. Along with Anders, his wife and Sam, Emil invites Micke (Alexander Karim) and his pregnant wife, who he fusses over, much to her frustration. Patrick (Per Wernolf ) is invited along to officiate, even though he is trying to get over his recent breakup with Eva (Anna Littorin), only Emil appears to be blind to the fact that this is going to be a recipe for a disaster.

The disc comes with the sort of clean and sharp print that you would expect from a recent film; this certainly helps to make the best of the scenery, which makes Sweden look like a very beautiful country. You have audio options for either 2.0 stereo or 5.1 surround sound, but this is a film about relationships so either track will do the job. Although the film is in Swedish with subtitles, Luke Perry does not speak Swedish so more than half of the film is in English.

There is a single extra on the disc, an interview with Ian McCrudden (3 min, 36 sec) which due to its short length acts more like an introduction to the film.

I liked the movie, the cast are believable, the script is warm and amusing, for once it’s a feel-good movie which, for all its trial will leave you with a small warm glow.

7

Charles Packer