I came across this movie on Netflix streaming. It is the first feature movie for Alicia Vikander, for it to succeed she must turn in a masterful performance and she does. Most of the language is Swedish, with English subtitles.
The original Swedish title translates to "To that which is beautiful".
Alicia Vikander, about 20, is Katarina. Her character is established early when we witness her chasing and wrestling to the lunchroom floor a school boy who was calling her names, 'slut' among them. This established two things, she had a reputation for sleeping around and she had a quick temper. She lives with her young boyfriend who seems like a nice guy but their lives are bland, watching the telly and playing video games.
One day Katarina is on the computer and quite by accident comes across a youtube video with Mozart music and she seems to be transformed while listening to it. She is calm and happy. Then she decides to walk into the city's concert hall one day to find the symphony is rehearsing. It seems she has fallen in love with a music she had no idea existed.
While standing around a lady with the symphony mistakes her for someone interviewing for a job as a receptionist and switchboard attendant. With no qualifications at all she makes up a story that her mother had been a concert pianist in Australia, named Kelly Clarkson. But she died when Katarina was only 2. Struck by her story she was given the job on a trial basis. She turns out to be a model, efficient employee.
Just past halfway in the movie a song is playing on the soundtrack, lyrics:
I killed myself today, For second life replay, I killed myself today
I had too many lives, I did it to survive, So I killed myself today
But somehow I'm not dead, I'm still inside a head, To testify what's real When truth is to believe
And that sort of sums up the story here, Katarina needed to kill the old self to reinvent a new self that would be happy and productive.
Good movie, I really enjoyed it and the performance of Vikander.
SPOILERS: The director of the orchestra was Samuel Fröler, 50-ish, as Adam. He takes an immediate liking to Katerina and she is flattered that a great (in her eyes) musician would pay attention to her. At a social their eyes meet, he motions for her to follow him, they consummate their passion. She goes to his house, they sleep naked, they act like young lovers. But then his wife calls, she is traveling in Italy with the children. He was just using this young lady, barely more than a girl, for his own entertainment, to be discarded when the novelty is gone. Or his wife returns. She doesn't give up easily, Adam instructs that she be fired, she has to be taken out forcibly. After a concert she sneaks into Adam's office, she says she wants her job back. He toys with her, asks her to dance to get her job back, then laughs at her. When he lights up a smoke and reclines on the sill of an open window we know that she will push him out, to his death in the street below. The movie ends with her being re-employed and working with the youth audience outreach. And she is happy.
The original Swedish title translates to "To that which is beautiful".
Alicia Vikander, about 20, is Katarina. Her character is established early when we witness her chasing and wrestling to the lunchroom floor a school boy who was calling her names, 'slut' among them. This established two things, she had a reputation for sleeping around and she had a quick temper. She lives with her young boyfriend who seems like a nice guy but their lives are bland, watching the telly and playing video games.
One day Katarina is on the computer and quite by accident comes across a youtube video with Mozart music and she seems to be transformed while listening to it. She is calm and happy. Then she decides to walk into the city's concert hall one day to find the symphony is rehearsing. It seems she has fallen in love with a music she had no idea existed.
While standing around a lady with the symphony mistakes her for someone interviewing for a job as a receptionist and switchboard attendant. With no qualifications at all she makes up a story that her mother had been a concert pianist in Australia, named Kelly Clarkson. But she died when Katarina was only 2. Struck by her story she was given the job on a trial basis. She turns out to be a model, efficient employee.
Just past halfway in the movie a song is playing on the soundtrack, lyrics:
I killed myself today, For second life replay, I killed myself today
I had too many lives, I did it to survive, So I killed myself today
But somehow I'm not dead, I'm still inside a head, To testify what's real When truth is to believe
And that sort of sums up the story here, Katarina needed to kill the old self to reinvent a new self that would be happy and productive.
Good movie, I really enjoyed it and the performance of Vikander.
SPOILERS: The director of the orchestra was Samuel Fröler, 50-ish, as Adam. He takes an immediate liking to Katerina and she is flattered that a great (in her eyes) musician would pay attention to her. At a social their eyes meet, he motions for her to follow him, they consummate their passion. She goes to his house, they sleep naked, they act like young lovers. But then his wife calls, she is traveling in Italy with the children. He was just using this young lady, barely more than a girl, for his own entertainment, to be discarded when the novelty is gone. Or his wife returns. She doesn't give up easily, Adam instructs that she be fired, she has to be taken out forcibly. After a concert she sneaks into Adam's office, she says she wants her job back. He toys with her, asks her to dance to get her job back, then laughs at her. When he lights up a smoke and reclines on the sill of an open window we know that she will push him out, to his death in the street below. The movie ends with her being re-employed and working with the youth audience outreach. And she is happy.