Memories of a Swedish childhood: the consumptive mother, the avuncular foster parents, the invalid neighbor who likes to have the lingerie ads read to him aloud, the buxom nude model, the girl disguised as a boy, and -- that pinnacle of national pride -- the victory of Ingemar Johansson over Floyd Patterson in faraway America. The child, with the face of a fox (not your normal cute kid, but cute all the same), is philosophical beyond his years, and takes a cosmic perspective on his troubles: "It's important to compare," he muses, thinking especially of the Russian dog starving to death in Sputnik. His temperament prepares him for larger troubles than, for example, getting his penis stuck in the neck of a bottle. But the rough-hewn narrative episodes, tending to be brief and breezy, seldom truly test him. And their air of forced chipperness borders on insensitivity. Directed by Lasse Hallstrom. (1986) — Duncan Shepherd
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