Language: Swedish with optional English subtitles
Written and directed by: Ulf Malmros
Released: 2003
Genre: Black comedy
Website: http://www.smalasussie.se/
Main Cast:
Erik   -  Jonas Rimeika
Susie  -  Tuva Novotny
Grits  -  Björn Starrin
Sandra -  Malin Morgan

Plot Synopsis

The plot to Slim Susie is told in flashback, so we get lots of narration filling in background, but it's all out of order. Erik is relating the events of the last few days to a police officer, who just barely has the patience to sit through the whole convoluted explanation. But we soon see that there are many people involved who don't seem important at first, and the order in which the mystery unfolded itself to Erik is essential to understanding what he was thinking and doing.

Erik's sister, "Slim" Susie, is a girl wound so tight she's about to pop. The two of them took care of their alcoholic mother until one day, after a showing of Pulp Fiction that was interrupted by the theater not having the final reel of the film, Erik decides to leave their small town for Stockholm. After three years he gets a call from his sister's friend Sandra that Susie has gone missing. So he hitchhikes back to Värmland find her.

As he works his way through his friends and family, he picks up hints that Susie's changed since he left. She's gone from health nut to eating pizza three meals a day, and drinking away depression. Unfortunately, his old friend Grits is too self-absorbed and apathetic to be of any help, and the town's one cop has too many domestic problems to be of any use to anyone.

As Erik continues his search, an eccentric assortment of quirky locals become involved in an extremely convoluted network of cause and effect with each other. We soon discover that the web stretches back to just before Susie vanished.

Watching the mystery unfold from the point of view of the various characters Erik talks to stretches what really should have been a simple story out into a vast conspiracy much larger than what is warranted by the events which triggered it: The theft of 500,000 Swedish Kronas from an old lady who passed away at the local nursing home.

Note: The 1,000 Swedish Krona bills we see being handled throughout the movie are worth about US$135. The full 500,000 Krona is about US$70,000.

Review

NetFlix recommended this movie to me, and I wasn't dissapointed. Overall, the movie is pretty funny, full of twisted coincidences and misunderstandings. I gave it four stars out of five. Half the reason I wanted to see this movie was to get me some Swedish culture. Unfortunately:

  • Erik's movie-obsessed friend has posters of Hollywood movies in his house.
  • A section of town has been Americanized and is called "little Chicago".
  • Erik and his friend have a brief conversation in English for no particular reason.
  • Most of the music the characters listen to (and the soundtrack) is in English.
  • Erik's moped helmet is decorated like the Union Jack.
  • The video store has mostly Hollywood movies (plus Amélie).
  • The grocery store loaded with junk food Americans would find familiar. At one point two characters walk down an aisle loaded with Coca-Cola products.

DVD Extras

  1. Bortklippta sekvenser: Mostly extended scenes that weren't very important to the plot, but had some good, mostly throwaway, jokes. If a scene seemed oddly cut short during the movie, chances are you'll find the rest of it in here.

  2. Bakom kulisserna: Some of the cast and the director talk about the movie. It's fairly interesting to see their take on it, and the director talks a bit about growing up in small-town Sweden.

  3. Trailer: Your basic trailer that shows enough clips of the movie so you have a general idea what it's about.

  4. Can be shown with or without subtitles, with Swedish dialogue only.

Wow... look at all those umlauts in the closing credits.

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