Flyerplesys Perfectly adorable

Borgarkeri A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

Iseerphia All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

SnoopyStyle It's 1958 Sweden. Young boy Ingemar (Anton Glanzelius) is living with his older brother and his seriously ill mother. His best friend is a blonde little girl. The brothers are sent away when their mother gets too weak. Ingemar goes to live with his mother's odd brother Gunnar (von Brömssen) and his wife Ulla (Kicki Rundgren) in a rural town in Småland. Town tomboy Saga (Melinda Kinnaman) is a better athlete than every other boys and she grows to like Ingemar.The puppy love is adorable. This is a cute and a good deal of inappropriate coming-of-age story. It is hilarious at times. Kinnaman is funny and adorable especially when she starts getting jealous. The two of them are just adorable together.

Rodrigo Amaro "Mitt Liv Som Hund" or simply "My Life as a Dog" is a warming and poetic chronicle of the life of a young boy who learns about what growing up is like when faced to live with another parents after his mother's illness prevents her from taking care of him and his older brother. The boy, Ingemar (the gifted Anton Glanzelius), narrates his distant happy memories while living with his mother and then later his future discoveries and events that changed his life. While telling his stories he keeps comparing his life to the Laika's life, the little dog who was sent to space by the Soviet in 1957, year the movie's story starts. "But one must compare", he says. And the comparison he makes with the dog is a reflexive one which seems totally unrelated with the movie but it's not. It's about the process of growing up, facing the unknown (or little known). Laika in the space, Ingemar on the ground with his eccentric uncles, new friends and far away from the very few people he knew: his sick mother and his brother, sent to another home. One has to be afraid of the unknown, to question it again and again but always compare. Maybe later one will know that aren't hard as it appear to be. It carries the same childhood innocence presented in Truffaut's "L'argent De Poche" which presented several sketches of kids getting involved in pranks, apparently harmless sometimes, other times involving great danger, but always discovering, learning something. It had its great dramatic moments but most of it was a collection of nostalgic and jolly images which brings back one of the most fundamental part of our lives: our childhood. What do we do those moments? Well, we compare it to our experiences (if you remember them) and observe if it was that difficult to break from one phase to another, and if we had strange and bitter days or wonderful and pleasant moments. We have to compare, you have to compare!Lasse Hallström makes of this a glorious, beautiful and funny picture, one to be viewed multiple times not because it's difficult or peculiar but because of its graceful and delicacy, truly reward and temptive. Not only those, he extracted one of the greatest performances by a child actor. Glanzelius is natural, convincing and a true to joy to be seen acting. His Ingemar might have a strange optic of things, a puzzling behavior and a puzzling mannerism (the thing he does with the milk to quote an example) but there's plenty of admirable things to which any of us can relate to him. It's a shame he practically vanished from the movie business after giving one helluva of performance. The golden ticket that brought the director to Hollwyood after his Oscar nomination, this is Hallström's best film to date. Not saying that "Chocolate" and "The Cider House Rules" don't have merits cause they have but gotta admit that Hollywood ruined a bit Mr. Hallström's potential with all the awarded and nominated tearjerkers he made there, most of them flicks that go for the easy tears and easy targets. He's so much more effective with simple presentations, which mirrors life and are relevant to life, going deeper than anything. In "My Life as a Dog" he goes for the smiles and the positive emotions with glimpses of sadness. Sweet as childhood. But that's just my perspective. 10/10

Stephen Alfieri "My Life as a Dog" is a simple story about a 12 year old, mischievous boy, who is trying to find his way. He has a brother that he does not really get along with, a mother who is getting progressively sicker, and a dog who gives him the love that he is not able to get from either his mother or brother.To help his mother recover, he is sent packing, off to live for the summer with an uncle, where he finds a place to fit in, and friends and neighbors who are just as "strange" and mischievous.The film is a memory, neither romanticized or critical of either the boy or his family and friends. It simply tells the tale of a boy on the verge of puberty and the confusing feelings that he experiences.I didn't like the repetitive nature of the narration that occurs throughout the film, but I found myself drawn into the story and the characters.Lasse Hallstrom does a marvelous job of getting genuine, honest performances from all of his actors, who are all excellent.8 out of 10

JesX I am dumbfounded as to the reason this film caught flattering attention. I love foreign and art house, and I know why it caught my attention: I watch anything. But I actually stopped watching this tepid tragedy due to disinterest, waited a few days and re-played it, this time all the way through. Despite it's promising subject matter this script is far from adventurous; the boy learns nothing from his experiences and the townspeople are no more eccentric than your average Swede. Due to a miscast of the lead character (he is 12 years old, but the actor seems about 9) the sexual encounters he has are borderline creepy. There could have been a deeper, lost metaphor between the loss of his dog and his thoughts of his dying mother, but if so, it was either lost in translation or wound up on the cutting room floor.If you want an excellent film that tackles looming death or losing a loved one rent "Autumn Spring" or Hallstrom's better venture, "The Shipping News". Hmmm, Death. That reminds me. I was less bored watching the walking scene in "Gerry". Rent that too.