TOGETHER
written and directed by Lukas Moodysson with Gustav Hammarsten, Lisa Lindgren, and Emma Samuelsson opens Sept. 21 at Guild 45th
FOR THOSE OF US growing up in the ’70s, the checkered bell-bottoms were traumatic enough without the added burden of living in a commune. In this SIFF favorite by Lukas Moodysson (Show Me Love), kids have to cope with sharing a house with a bunch of Stockholm hippies circa 1975. A period movie, Together transcends mere (multi-) family drama with a faithfully dated atmosphere that aptly defines the middle of a decade of increasingly ambiguous ideals.
Bearded, pacifist, VW bus-driving G� (Gustav Hammarsten) is the head of the commune called Together (Tillsammans) where he lives with his free-loving girlfriend Lena, a split couple and their young son, an openly gay man, an idealistic back-to-basics couple, and a temperamental, naive revolutionary. These happy cohabitants share chores, anti-bourgeois philosophies, and nightly dancing and drinks, until G� shakes up the collective by sheltering his sister Elisabeth (Lisa Lindgren) and her two children from her abusive husband. Not surprisingly, what was once a finely calibrated household begins to unravel. So much for togetherness, we think.
Moodysson captures perfectly this in-between time in social history, right down to the shaggy hair and anti-government sentiments. Even as free love and far-left politics swirl in the air, these comrades are considered freakish. The suspicious family next door constantly peers through their curtains with binoculars, while Elisabeth’s son and daughter endure every form of ostracism to be expected from the insular, dogmatic society outside. Soon, however, each adult pair undergoes turmoil, from G�’s girlfriend pining for the frustrated revolutionary to the newly out lesbian mom hitting on Elisabeth and the gay man lusting for her former husband. The always animated dinner conversations—which formerly revolved around politics, philosophy, sex, and household responsibility—break down when the nonhippie Elisabeth and her two meat-eating kids join the circle.
It’s through the eyes of Elisabeth’s children, the shy, bespectacled Eva and her younger brother Stefan (expert actors Emma Samuelsson and Sam Kessel, respectively), that we see the grown-ups behaving with so little maturity; it’s as though none of them notice that the rest of the world is moving on without them. Even their nightly partying is undermined by the advent of disco. (Together makes the most resonant use of ABBA since Muriel’s Wedding.) Yet from this mayhem, the unorthodox clan comes to resemble anyone’s family: difficult at times, rife with conflict, but ultimately a group of people that accepts and stands behind you no matter what—and no matter when.
