"Istället för abrakadabra" or "Instead of Abracadabra" is a live action short film from 2008, so almost 10 years old. It is a Swedish production, so make sure you got a good set of subtitles. For many of the people who worked on this little movie, it is still by far their most known work, or at least one of their most known works and this includes writer and director Patrik Eklund. The reason is very simple: The film was nominated for an Academy Award almost a decade ago, where it lost to "The New Tenants". It is the story of a man who still lives with his parents and who loves practicing magic. But things don#t always go his way and during one of his shows, his mother gets injured and has to head to the hospital. The magician is lucky though as he meets a cute nurse there, but the way to her heart only goes through the path of actually succeeding with his shows and that includes shows for children with rodents and tiny explosions as well as shows for grown-ups with really sharp weapons. Will our hero succeed? I think this was a decent little comedy movie with some dramatic moments for sure, but overall, it is indeed fairly light. It never tries to be a story where a son wants to prove something to his father, but it's just everyday life and at the very end, the magician's career is probably over, but he may have found something much more valuable. Watch it, it's a charming little story.
Review of Instead of Abracadabra
