PATRIK, AGE 1.5
Written & Directed by Ella Lemhagen, based on the play by Michael Druker
Produced by Mathias Berggren and Tomas Michaelsson
Released by Regent Releasing/Here Films
Swedish with English subtitles
Sweden. 95 min. Not Rated
With Gustaf Skarsgard, Torkel Petersson, Thomas Ljungman, Annika Hallin, Amanda Davin & Jacob Ericksson
 

A leopard can change its spots according to Patrik, Age 1.5. Bringing people together through a typographical error, the Swedish film follows the trials and travails of an upwardly mobile gay couple who end up fostering a troubled 15-year-old homophobe due to a punctuation mistake.

Goran (Gustaf Skarsgard) and Sven (Torkel Petersson) are the ideal modern couple. The proud owners of a new house in a neighborhood lifted from 1950s American suburbia, all they need to complete their perfect family portrait is a child. After winning approval to adopt by social services, they turn a spare room into a nursery and await a child named Patrik, who is apparently 1.5 years old. When a 15-year old Patrik (Thomas Ljungman) lands on their doorstep instead, they think it’s a mistake. When it becomes clear it’s not, the cracks in the perfect façade begin to show through.

A juvenile delinquent, whose rap sheet includes an assault charge with a knife, Patrik walks around the house in a sulk, constantly spouting off “homo” to Sven and Goran. His very presence causes a fissure in the seemingly solid relationship of the temporary parents. Sven retakes to boozing, smoking, and listening to sad country music and brooding about his fast disappearing partying days. Goran, a peace-loving doctor with a hard case of nesting urges, takes to violently kicking unsuspecting trashcans and flower plots. Throw in a homophobic neighborhood and a handsome office administrator, arguments, tears, and separation are bound to ensue.

Underneath his hard case exterior, Patrik is just another troubled kid looking for love and bonding through matching running suits and the family dog. Patrik 1.5 takes the timeworn story of a deliquent redeemed through concern and love and gives it a twist. Replacing the standard middle-class heterosexual couple with a gay one, director Ella Lemhagen makes her points against homophobic prejudice by the sheer normalcy of her story. Wonderfully understated, Gustaf Skarsgard and Torkel Petersson bring their characters problems to the forefront without devolving into mid-life (and relationship) crisis clichés, while Thomas Liungman’s Patrik is a balanced mixture of innocence and angst. Patrik 1.5 doesn’t move any mountains in storytelling, but its sweet humor and charm lend it enough power to create fissures in bigotry. Lisa Bernier
August 8, 2010