Together
Capsule by Lisa Alspector From the Chicago Reader
Love hurts, according to the Nazareth song on the sound track, and in this 2001 comedy-drama the characters know it. A mother of two leaves her violent husband and takes refuge with her brother, part of a cooperative household in 1970s Stockholm. And at first, with the endless policy discussions and doctrine-driven behavior of most of the co-op's residents, writer-director Lukas Moodysson (Show Me Love) seems to be satirizing communal living and socialist values as much as their alternative, represented by the drunken wife beating, complacent boredom, loneliness, and voyeurism of the "squares" who live outside the house. But the stereotyping is merely the basis for a wonderfully complex examination of sexual and material politics that's full of bravely provocative, gently funny, and warmly human encounters. With Lisa Lindgren and Gustaf Hammarsten. In Swedish with subtitles. R, 106 min.
