A remake of a 1990s cross-cultural teen romance that touches on difficult social issues and is a window on Swedish society that hints at deep issues but pulls its punches

First love, especially an impossible one, always makes for compelling material, as do the contrasts that this film's urban European setting allows for.

Despite the film's successes in many arenas, however, I couldn't help but be thrown by its indecisiveness about the story it was trying to tell.

"JJ" (Mustapha Aarab) is a decent enough kid who lives with his mum and her slightly thuggish policeman boyfriend, and who hangs out with petty criminal "Sluggo" (Jonay Pineda Skallak) for whom he usually quite deftly handles some "merchandise". On the other side of their city dwells "Elisabeth" (Elsa Öhrn). Her family live in a luxurious home overlooking the water but it is barely any more functional than his. When high school throws the pair together, he takes an immediate shine to her but in what universe might she ever reciprocate? Meantime, after an ill-considered attempt to impress her, he manages to get themselves robbed at knife-point and to upset things with his friend putting lives in jeopardy too. There is very little original here, nor does any of the acting really kick the film into gear. Instead, it's a slightly procedural teenage drama with it's typical share of angst, family dysfunction and hormones before an ending that, to be fair, isn't quite what it could have been had we continued to join the dots as expected. It passes the time easily enough, and it does cast a little shadow on the more traditional image of Swedish life, but I doubt that you'll ever remember it.