Movie Reviews -
Gay Themed

This 4 episode (45 minutes each) mini series is tThe intriguing true story of King Gustaf V, Sweden's first gay king. It looks at the clandestine affair in the 1930s between a Swedish king and a male restaurateur, in a captivating portrayal of love against the odds that uncovers the homophobia and human rights abuses of those times. A love that had to be kept from the public at all costs, but eventually got out, leading to one of the worst miscarriages of justice that Sweden has ever witnessed. The year is 1932, and in a final attempt to save his restaurant, ex-con man Kurt Haijby appeals for a private audience with King Gustav V of Sweden. To his wife Anna’s great surprise, he is granted one. What starts off as a formal encounter between the restaurateur and the King soon turns into a romantic evening filled with passion. But when the fling turns into a secret relationship, the King’s advisors do everything to stop the affair. Haijby is railroaded, repeatedly by Governor Nothin, w...

This dramedy film is about the new alternative family and how different family situations and relationships come to a head during the Christmas dinner when they are all in for a surprise. The concept of dysfunctional family, familial inadequacy and homophobia; it's all in here. But we also need to remember that this film came out almost 8-9 years back. So watching it today, definitely feels a bit dated. Simon and Oscar are a gay couple who have invited both their side of families for Christmas dinner. They have just moved into a new house and they want the familial family comfort. We first meet Oscar's Swedish parents. They are old and charming but also say wrong things at wrong times. They are rich and dad doesn't like the fact that Oscar has left all his education to pursue writing. There's Oscar's sister and his niece as well. Then we have Simon. His Greek parents are separated. Father works as a cleaner in the hotel the other parents were staying and the mother ...

Almost everyone's favorite show, the third and final season of  Young Royals just finished with a bittersweet farewell, packed full of emotion, scandal, and unexpected twists. Although there are many painful goodbyes, it’s a refreshing change for a queer show to conclude on its own terms—no sudden cancellation or rushed conclusion. I think the edn was predictable but the show uses enough twists, sweet and tense moments and a finale which is both emotional , tense yet very much justified. Like previous season, this time also we had 6 epodes and I could not wait to see where Wille and Simon are headed in their relationship. The private school has to now deal with aftermath of Crown prince's speech the end of season two where he comes out as gay. Simon and Wille still have to reel with the aftermath of their leaked video. While we get moments of joy and fun between the two leads, there’s still drama or tension. Homophobia is rife as Simon contends with online abuse as journalists ...

Everyone has their own way of dealing with grief. Some tackle it head-on, while others live in denial. In this series, a gay young adult Tore, our leading man walk a path of self-destruction. As audience it sometimes become frustrating for us to not be able to understand why Tore is doing what he is doing, but if you delve in the character depth enough, it feels like an honest portrayal of grief and escapism. The actor playing Tore also happens to be writer and creator of the show. And what's more interesting is that even though the show may sound all serious and drama; it's actually a dark-comedy, tragedy and drama. At six episodes of half an hour each, this Swedish Netflix series was a very good binge watch. The split is simple. Tore is a 27 year old gay, virgin, young adult, socially clueless boy who lives and works with his father at the funeral home. In the first episode we see father and son fighting over why isin't Tore leaving the house to live on his own. Essential...

An Army Of Lovers is a visual journey into the history of queer self-presentation in Sweden. Combining newly shot 16mm and Super-8 material with rare archival footage, this documentary tells the story of the brave activists who in the 1970s picked up their film cameras in order to tell their own truths to the world – defying the ‘illness classification’ attributed to homosexuality and the dominant homophobic imagination. In 1977, the same year that the first liberation march paraded through Stockholm, three pivotal queer films began production: Bögjävlar/Damned Queers, Kvinnan i ditt liv är du/The woman in your life is you and Eva & Maria. For the first time, open lesbians and gay men were granted state funding for depicting their own realities, stories about finding love and community and confronting society’s rampant homophobia and traditional gender roles. In this documentary, rich archive is brought to life and recharged with urgency in dialogue with newly shot documentary scen...

Season One of Young Royals was a surprisingly very good show and something I enjoyed a LOT. So needless to say that I was super excited about watching Season 2. The originals Eason had so many ups and downs and same could be expected of this season as well. Even though personally I would have loved more focus on Wilhelm and Simon story, I did enjoy the fact that they sort of gave depth to other characters as well. No one is outright bad, they maybe grey and have reasons behind their motivations. I absolutely loved and enjoyed season 2 as much as I did the original one. And something about watching it in the original language, they way they speak is nice. Sometimes it feels like Crown, sometimes Heartstopper but the show stands out on its own. After having left their relationship at an awkward junction in season, we see the students return back to school for the new year. As the new crown prince, Wilhelm feels pressure all the time and he doesn't know how to navigate with Simon now....

I am really not sure what to think of this movie! Was it a musical? Or more like an erotic soft porn? Because although it was neither of those, but with every passing moment of me trying to figure out what is it the makers are trying to go for in this film, I found myself finding the whole premise nothing but an excuse to sensualize the film and make it some sort of melodramatic gay drama pulsating its eroticism and power shifting school dynamic. In an imaginary world I suppose, St Sebastian university has only male gay students. So sex and fun and drama is always in the air. The schoolmaster has a weird sexual tension with one of his students Charles who is this mystery boy and one of the few who doesn't have a boyfriend. While the schoolmaster fantasizes about the Charles, he is also haunted by his own younger days when he was in closet and a time when he was attacked viciously for being gay. Around this simultaneously the auditions for the annual Winter Procession are also going...

I pretty much chanced upon this series totally by accident. The name sounded interesting and I was on a lookout for a new show to watch. Knowing absolutely nothing, I went into the show with minimal expectations but boy was I waiting to be surprised. As the name suggests, its about royalty in Sweden showcasing teen angst, friendship, social divide, sexuality, coming-of-age. The show is a cross between The Crown and Elite (a Spanish Netflix show, which is another total guilty pleasure of mine) and you have a show waiting to be seen. Prince Wilhelm, the younger son of the Sweden royal family get embroiled in a fight controversy, who is then sent to the prestigious Hillerska boarding school as a punishment. Its the same school where his elder brother Erik, the crown prince studied. Erik/Wilhelm's cousin August is final year student, who rules the upper-class men of this boarding school. Initially awkward Prince Wilhelm finds himself to be lost till he meets Simon, a commoner who is st...

They say 'Misery Loves company'. When people are "different" or "broken" they get attracted to people with similar issues. This film shows us a bit about that. I am not sure how I feel about the film. I wanted to like it and feel the characters but I just didn't. Almost nothing is happening for almost half the film and as I have said plenty of times that you need a certain mindset to watch such films. Sadly, this film didn't do for me on the scale that it has vowed critics all over. Sebastian is a shy young transgender(?). The sexuality is never made obvious. She has taken the name of Ellie, at least on her own, but has not yet told anyone. Instead she lives and works as Sebastian, taking on the world with a bitter resignation and an androgynous wardrobe. She visits seedy places for sex. On one such occasion she meets Andres, a young handsome man who saves her from getting beaten on one such sexcapade. Sebastian is looking fo love and its only at the...

Demise of a relationship, the breakup that happens after a loving successful relationship and what happens thereafter forms the crux of this film; adapted as a full length feature from the short story 'No More We' reviewed here . I appreciate using the same actors from the short film. The film felt eerily similar to my personal life on how the breakup happens, how one person moves on but the other doesn't and even the last few minutes on how their life ends up being. It was so interesting to see it but not everything was good. Adrian and Hampus have been together for 3 years, engaged to be married but the passion has completely subsided. Hampus decides to breakup the relationship, but Adrian is shocked at this, despite the fact that he is also unhappy. They split assets, including half the bed, but the reality doesn't sink in until after few weeks when Facebook status' are changed. The film takes place over the next year when at first neither of the men can move on ...

This film is made by a  Swedish-Georgian director, who wanted to shoot Georgia's first explicitly queer feature film, a coming-of-age story about a traditional dancer; but as you can expect was met with a lot of resistance. If anyone asked, he’d say, the film is about a French tourist who comes to Georgia and falls in love with the culture. Since the film is about Georgian dance and masculinity, it is important to understand that the Georgian folk dancer is an image of masculine stereotype. His movements are martial, virile; they simulate war, hunting, and the courtship of his beloved. And this message is repeated and stressed upon more than just a few times in the film. Upcoming dancer Merab is part of a dance troupe who is also preparing to audition for a part in the main troupe. But every single time, his oppressive trainer reproaches him for being too soft, too feminine. Dance has been in his family with his grandmother, father, mother and even brother following the same path a...

Ok, so this may not really be classified as queer cinema, but it touches upon the subject tangentially, so there is no harm done in reviewing the film here. Plus this film was quite funny and interesting and I think more people should watch the film and get entertained. We don't always have to have films on serious subjects. Its time we lighten up the mood a little. Valle is a successful pilot and leading a good life with a wife and kids. When the job market goes down, he unexpectedly finds himself out of job. To make matters worse, his wife divorces him and ends up with a much older man and Valle finds himself living with his sister in his childhood home. Unable to find a pilot job, he decides to impersonate as a woman with the help of his sister, when he finds an opening for a female pilot. Of course, he gets the job and this is where the fun begins. He starts getting close to a bi-sexual stewardess and a fellow pilot, known for his promiscuity, starts flirting with her. On ...

Thank you so much to one of my readers on this blog, who suggested that I should watch this series and that I would like it. I had in my list to watch this series but if not for the feedback, I probably won't have watched it so soon, and I would have missed out on such a great series. Made as a 3 part TV series of almost an hour each in Sweden, This film brings us a very interesting, genuinely touching, heart- wrenching and important piece of modern history. It deals with the start of the AIDS epidemic in 1980's homophobic Sweden. 19-year-old Rasmus, moves from rural hometown to Stockholm to attend university after graduation. As soon as he arrives in Stockholm he begins to seek out the gay community that he was always suppressing in his small town. He meets and befriends Paul as soon as he arrives in the city. At a Christmas dinner party in Paul's apartment he eventually meets Benjamin, a young man who is struggling to come to terms with his homosexuality (Paul helps ...

This film provides a very different take on the effects of secret desire on public office in otherwise open minded Sweden and how it also affects the relationships of the individuals involved. A bold romantic comedy that pushes boundaries on several thematic levels, this i another brilliant gay themed Swedish film after Patrick 1,5 a few years ago. David Holst has just lost the election he was slated to win. His good looks, political savvy, and humor made him the front-runner for the Prime Minister of Sweden, but his lead has suddenly taken a downfall. It is during this time of disappointment that he meets Martin in an elevator and falls head over heels in love. Despite his marriage to his closest co-worker, Fia, and his professed heterosexuality, David pursues a relationship with Martin only to find out that Martin is the Secretary of State for the political party that beat him in the recent election. He is very confused on what to do. He tries his best but cannot control his desire t...

After a long time, I actually got choked up while watching a movie. This necessarily might not be because of the content of the movie but also because of the fact that how difficult it is for gay couples to adopt and raise a kid and how people perceive them in general in society. Also what the teenage Patrik goes through in his life after having lost all near and dear ones, just makes you want to cry This is the story of a gay couple living in white picket fence suburban neighborhood run by a homeowners association and populated by an all straight community. Goran and Sven are a married gay couple and now after moving in their suburban house want to adopt and raise an infant child to round out their marriage and live as a family. They have been put on a long waiting list to find a child they can raise from a baby and finally one becomes available. Or so it seems. A typing error that should have read Patrik, age 15 has been mistyped by the social service agency as Patrik 1,5. Believing ...

The good thing about this festival is that I am getting to watch these short films which I would have neevr thouht of watching but its good fun. This Norwegian film was no less interesting. Friends Hampus (straight) and Bjorn (gay) move into their new flat as roommates and celebrate by having a playful romp on the couch . They are very comfortable with each other and viewer gets confused that maybe both are gay. At night , Hampus wants to o out to pick girls but when Bjorn refuses , he offers to go to a gay bar with him but still gets rejected. Bored alone Bjorn leaves a funny and playful message to Hampus. Soon Hampus starts bringing a girlfriend home and things are not same now. Several nights later, Hampus comes home piss drunk and opts to sleep in Bjorn's bed. Bjorn slips in as well and ends up jerking off his friend. We have realized by then that Bjorn has secret desires for Hampus. Needles to say that a wonderful friendship that existed goes wrong by Hampus declaring in the e...