Punk is not dead. At least not for Swedish 13 year olds. We Are the Best! tells the story of the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo origin stories of the underbelly of the Scandinavian tweens. Most audience members will feel a tinge of nostalgia at the enraged rebellion of not fitting in. Especially the non-athletic crowd.
Bobo (Mira Barkhammar) and Klara (Mira Grosin) are not the expected tall blonde girls you’d see in Stockholm. They are rebel best friends obsessed with punk music. Mocked by their normal friends, they elect to create a band honoring their punk idols. They add a third outcast, Hedvig (Liv Lemoyne), a Christian girl superb on the guitar. The three navigate the early stages of growing up, including drinking, boys, and intergirl turmoil.
We Are The Best! keenly captures that tween state of flux point of view, giving the movie its power. These girls are CONVINCED of the brilliance of their choices, even the really bad ones. Their awesome song has about 6 lines. Other than Hedvig, they play instruments poorly. They can’t sing a lick, but that doesn’t waver their collective confidence one iota. The confidence is set up by their shared persecution from their classmates. This confidence is then tested as the three realize they are radically different. Are they really friends? Or are they just united by a common cause? These issues are all dealt with using humor and insightful emotion, letting each character grow from the well written mistakes and conflicts. The movie obviously is leading to the big show, but We Are the Best! is great because of how it handles what “best” means.
Mira Barkhammer. Mira Grosin. Liv LeMoyne. These girls have bright futures ahead of them, each for different reasons. Barkhammer gets many of the bare emotional beats, displaying sadness beyond her years. Klara is the firecracker, energy and action incarnate. LeMoyne sells the growth from shy silence to stoic leader with few words and a look or two. All three butt heads with magnetic results in the second half of We Are the Best!, reinforcing their relationships despite the inevitable growth/mistakes they will see.
Glad to see Scandanavia isn’t just seedy underbelly. It has ubiquitous issues for young adults much like anywhere else. Many people will see a part of themselves in We Are the Best! leads. I personally think I am Hedvig, but could also be Bobo.