A Swedish story of sisters bound by love, secrecy and jealousy is given insight and warmth by its director’s personal experience
Swedish writer/director Sanna Lenken describes her admirable debut feature as an attempt to “examine what it means to grow up as a young girl [and] be judged for the way you look and not who you are”. Rebecka Josephson is wonderfully engaging as Stella, the awkward adolescent who discovers with horror that her popular figure-skating sister Katja (Amy Deasismont) is hiding a growing eating disorder. Drawing on personal experience of anorexia, Lenken examines the conflicting web of intimacy and alienation that entraps both sisters and moves with humour and compassion toward resolutions born of honesty, insight and affection.
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Swedish writer/director Sanna Lenken describes her admirable debut feature as an attempt to “examine what it means to grow up as a young girl [and] be judged for the way you look and not who you are”. Rebecka Josephson is wonderfully engaging as Stella, the awkward adolescent who discovers with horror that her popular figure-skating sister Katja (Amy Deasismont) is hiding a growing eating disorder. Drawing on personal experience of anorexia, Lenken examines the conflicting web of intimacy and alienation that entraps both sisters and moves with humour and compassion toward resolutions born of honesty, insight and affection.
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- 11/29/2015
- by Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
- The Guardian - Film News
The performances are good but the resolution is too smooth in this story of a girl who stumbles upon her idolised elder sister’s eating disorder
Sanna Lenken’s My Skinny Sister is an earnestly intentioned Swedish film about body image, but it wraps up its ideas glibly, like the TV issue movie of the week. At first it looks like a challenging drama about sibling rivalry and sibling dysfunction – something to compare, perhaps, with Catherine Breillat’s À Ma Soeur! or Céline Sciamma’s Water Lilies – but the promise of complexity is not fulfilled. Rebecka Josephson plays Stella, the pudgy younger sister of Katja (Amy Deasismont), sleek teen princess and school ice-skating star. Stella is in awe of Katja; she makes tragically lumbering attempts to emulate her prowess on the ice-rink and conceives an embarrassing crush on Katja’s coach. But when she discovers Katja’s bulimia, the whole...
Sanna Lenken’s My Skinny Sister is an earnestly intentioned Swedish film about body image, but it wraps up its ideas glibly, like the TV issue movie of the week. At first it looks like a challenging drama about sibling rivalry and sibling dysfunction – something to compare, perhaps, with Catherine Breillat’s À Ma Soeur! or Céline Sciamma’s Water Lilies – but the promise of complexity is not fulfilled. Rebecka Josephson plays Stella, the pudgy younger sister of Katja (Amy Deasismont), sleek teen princess and school ice-skating star. Stella is in awe of Katja; she makes tragically lumbering attempts to emulate her prowess on the ice-rink and conceives an embarrassing crush on Katja’s coach. But when she discovers Katja’s bulimia, the whole...
- 11/26/2015
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
★★★★☆ Swedish writer-director Sanna Lenken's notable debut My Skinny Sister (2015) about a young teenager's eating disorder is a simple tale given added poignancy by powerful performances from the two leads. Katja (Amy Deasismont) is a promising young figure skater envied and admired by her younger sister Stella (Rebecka Josephson). Katja is beautiful, svelte and talented while 12-year-old Stella is pudgy and awkward. To complicate matters further, Stella has a crush on Katja's German trainer Jacob (Maxim Mehmet).
- 11/23/2015
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Neil Armfield.s Holding the Man, Simon Stone.s The Daughter, Jeremy Sims. Last Cab to Darwin and Jen Peedom.s feature doc Sherpa will have their world premieres at the Sydney Film Festival.
The festival program unveiled today includes 33 world premieres (including 22 shorts) and 135 Australian premieres (with 18 shorts) among 251 titles from 68 countries.
Among the other premieres will be Daina Reid.s The Secret River, Ruby Entertainment's. ABC-tv miniseries starring Oliver Jackson Cohen and Sarah Snook, and three Oz docs, Marc Eberle.s The Cambodian Space Project — Not Easy Rock .n. Roll, Steve Thomas. Freedom Stories and Lisa Nicol.s Wide Open Sky.
Festival director Nashen Moodley boasted. this year.s event will be far larger than 2014's when 183 films from 47 countries were screened, including 15 world premieres. The expansion is possible in part due to the addition of two new screening venues in Newtown and Liverpool.
As previously announced, Brendan Cowell...
The festival program unveiled today includes 33 world premieres (including 22 shorts) and 135 Australian premieres (with 18 shorts) among 251 titles from 68 countries.
Among the other premieres will be Daina Reid.s The Secret River, Ruby Entertainment's. ABC-tv miniseries starring Oliver Jackson Cohen and Sarah Snook, and three Oz docs, Marc Eberle.s The Cambodian Space Project — Not Easy Rock .n. Roll, Steve Thomas. Freedom Stories and Lisa Nicol.s Wide Open Sky.
Festival director Nashen Moodley boasted. this year.s event will be far larger than 2014's when 183 films from 47 countries were screened, including 15 world premieres. The expansion is possible in part due to the addition of two new screening venues in Newtown and Liverpool.
As previously announced, Brendan Cowell...
- 5/6/2015
- by Don Groves
- IF.com.au
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