All Things Fair (1995)

Please don't spend money on this.

Overrated

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The core story, a young teacher with a disassociated husband, falling in love with one of her pupils is sound. Despite some lurid aspects to the first act, the subject it approached very well.The turning point comes in a brief scene mid-movie between the husband and the young lover, where it's revealed that the husband knows all the comings and goings of his wife. It's a beautiful piece of cinema - the confrontation between a man and a boy who thinks he's a man.After that point, what was a sensitive coming-of-age movie goes downhill fast. There's an awkward moment between the lead and a minor character that probably gained the movie more controversy than it was worth. After that, nothing of interest.

ALL THINGS FAIR (Lust och fägring stor) turned out to be brilliant Swedish writer/director Bo Widerberg's elegy: after a long history of successful and emotionally captivating films, this film was his last. Watching again some twelve years later gives an entirely different level of appreciation for Widerberg's work. This is a little jewel of a film explores human sexuality at the time of puberty and the enormous impact on the way relationships are viewed, while at the same time it presents a keen insight to the world at war and the equally monstrous side effects in myriad ways.Malmö, Sweden, 1943. A highschool class of boys is discovering the mysteries of body changes and all-consuming effects puberty has one young teenage men. Outside the classroom World War II threatens and inside the classroom puberty threatens. 15 year old Stig (Johan Widerberg) is a handsome, curious lad from a poor family who discovers his first female attraction in the form of his new 37 year old teacher Viola (Marika Lagercrantz), who, despite the impropriety of the situation added to the fact that she is married to a traveling salesman Kjell (Tomas von Brömssen) who spends his idle hours drinking and listening to classical music in the kitchen, returns the seductive dance and soon the two are in a physically involved affair. The beauty and fresh novelty of their feelings is captured in the most magical way with little dialog, many embarrassed glances, and significant risks that eventually include Kjell's discovery of their trysts. But as the two are discovered many changes occur: Stig's beloved soldier brother Sigge (Björn Kjellman) finally goes off to submarine warfare, Viola becomes less involved and senses the problem she has created, Stig falls under the spell of the tragic Kjell learning music and more from this pathetic man, and Stig finally must face the realities of more proper attraction to Lisbet (Karin Huldt) a girl his own age.The actors are superb, the settings are atmospheric, and the era of the 1940s Sweden is perfectly represented. Part of the joy of the film is the musical score that varies from a Handel aria during moments love making, to Brahms' 'Ein Deutsches Requiem', to Mahler's 5th Symphony 'Adagietto', to Beethoven's 'Grosse Fugue.' Widerberg makes it all work in a misty yet sensuous manner. It is a film to own and one to watch often. In Swedish with English subtitles. Grady Harp

Technically speaking, this is an excellent film---with exceptional acting, direction, etc. However, as the main theme involves the sexual exploitation of a teen by his teacher, it is NOT exactly Disney fair! Apart from having a very adult theme and a fair amount of nudity, I felt very disturbed when the main character (Stig) had other sexual encounters with an apparently younger girl he knew from school. These scenes are awfully graphic and the girl appears to be about 12 years-old. I couldn't help but wonder if pedophiles would be particularly attracted to this film because of this. I really think these encounters COULD have been included but just not made so explicit. In a way, it seems almost like the director and producers may have sexually exploited this girl--as she was apparently well under the age of consent--even with her parents' permission.

I may write one or more spoilers below.This film is absolutely superb. I have watched literally thousands of films, and this is one of the very best, if not *the* best film I have ever seen. But out of 656 votes for this film that have appeared on this site at the time of writing, only 135 of them are a 10 (out of 10). (I voted for this film and gave it a 10 of course.) So evidently a lot of people disagree with me. Why is this? I don't know, but I suspect strongly the fact that this film is not in English and has no actor or actress in it who is a star in the English-speaking world is part of the answer.Anyway, on to why this film is perhaps the greatest of all time. Well, first, it has an absolutely enthralling, extremely enjoyable, absorbing, logical, and coherent plot in which one totally loses oneself. But a lot of films have that. It also has completely believable, realistic, three-dimensional, fully fleshed-out, fascinating, irresistible, absolutely delicious characters of great psychological depth who the viewer really cares about and whose actions, thoughts, feelings, and situations one can strongly sympathise and deeply identify with. Other films have that. It is filmed in a truly magnificent, highly technically-proficient, beautiful, elegant, and satisfying style. But several other films have that too. It has an important, fundamental, universal and very human theme. A few other films, perhaps, have that as well. But this film, triumphantly, also has superlative direction and world-beating actors and actresses who are completely at ease and comfortable with their roles which they seem to slip into effortlessly, and whose performances have never been bettered and are all the more remarkable considering the age of some of them. And, as if all this were not enough, this film is at all times open, innocent, honest, and consistent, and at no times hackneyed, cowardly, patronising, or self-censoring. I'm not sure any other film has all these qualities in addition to all of the ones aforementioned.This is not like most films, which, however believable and realistic, are still obviously films: staged productions with endings already pre-set from the beginning and people who aren't living out their own real lives but are instead acting out the imaginary lives of fictitious personalities. No, this, more than being merely entirely believable and realistic, is moreover like a slice of real life actually being carried out as you are watching it by real people who are living out their own real lives.This film is, in short, an absolute must-see, especially, perhaps, for youngsters. It goes to prove, once and for all, that, contrary to what many people seem to think, there is more to non-English-language films than just Seven Samurai. Moreover, it is yet another example that demonstrates the fact that English-language films are, in general, vastly inferior, and that those lazy, nationalistic, tunnel-visioned viewers who refuse to read subtitles are missing out on a veritable Babette's Feast of viewing pleasure, and may be watching their films in widescreen, but are choosing them while wearing blinkers.----------------Comments on the above review are always appreciated, especially those from people who have seen this film.