Kevlarsjäl

I saw the film today and I thought before I went out that it had been a while since I had seen a Swedish film and this was my choice of film. Both director and actors were new to me except for Torkel Petersson who was brilliant in his role. A good directorial debut by Maria Eriksson-Hecht. The other actors were good except that the chemistry between the brothers was not felt, maybe due to poor casting? I think that is the most important thing for a film. It is still the chemistry between the actors that lifts the film. Important even if the actors are new talents, but also for well-known established actors. The film is worth seeing in any case, that is still a good rating.

Even with the best intentions to make a serious, poignant and serious film here fails completely. Rather than conveying a believable scenario, the poor and underdeveloped writing and stiff directing comes off as a juvenile student film rather than a professional feature film. A talented cinematographer can only save so much. The story just doesn't hold up, the events unfold in a very naive manner and the tragic turn of events are not fully earned. It might fool the critics but it won't attract any large audiences unfortunately - it's just very good or unique enough. It will nil to get the Swedish audiences back into the movie theaters. Should have been a tv series.

Maria Eriksson-Hecht's debut sneaks up on you. What starts as a tough, clear-eyed slice of Swedish social realism flowers into something piercingly tender about brothers who've turned each other into armor. The film's title isn't just a nod to Kent-it's a mission statement: how do you protect a heart that keeps taking hits?

The story tracks Alex and Robin with unsentimental focus and a steady pulse, helped by Pessi Levanto's unobtrusively aching score that glides in like a memory you can't shake.

Standouts? Rio Svensson is phenomenal as Robin - coiled, combustible, and heartbreakingly transparent in the quiet moments. You can see every calculation flicker across his face before he detonates. Josef Kersh gives Alex a stark, wounded steadiness; he plays survival without martyrdom, letting small glances and tightened jaws do the talking. Together they feel like real brothers-protective, punishing, inseparable until they aren't. Both are rightly billed as leads.

Eriksson-Hecht directs with a documentarian's attention and a dramatist's nerve. The camera never begs for our pity; it trusts us to find the cracks, and when the film finally breaks, it does so cleanly and honestly. The supporting turns (Torkel Petersson, Adja Sise Stenson) add grain without stealing focus, and Pelle Rådström's script keeps the cause-and-effect brutally legible: bad choices don't come from nowhere.