Sebbe (2010) Reviews

• A good film but not perfect.

  Nagi42010-11-22

  I think it's a beautiful and realistic film about the pain of growing up and being the outcast in the school. Feeling ashamed of your family situation. What was really good about it was that how the bullying and events in school happened felt real. I could relate to it strongly and recognize those events from my school years. It was how it happens in Europe at least. If you compare the way the bullying is done in a normal Hollywood studio film, this felt more real. The other real strength in this film is the acting. It is directed superbly and also the role of the mother is a very good one. Her character is strongly written. Then we come to the weakness of the film, why I almost left the theater. The film doesn't have a drive and it doesn't variate. Basically it's the same scenes happening again and again. It was an 80 minute film, which could have been 70 minutes. Or at least some re-writing would have helped a bit. But whit it's weakness, it was still a very good film.

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• A powerful drama

  complexityrules2010-10-24

  Sebbe is a powerful drama, so powerful that makes it hard to watch at times. Yet it maintains the meaning of its existence throughout the movie. It is about hard lives, even though it is not happening next door to you, it is well worth to know about them. It is about dead-end situations where hope almost disappears as you attempt to grab it. It is about pure anger, anger towards things that are out of your control. Sebbe, a talented good- natured 15 year-old, is trying hard to keep things under control, he is doing a decent job until his most trusted source, at least he wishes her to be, betrays him. I know this all sounds grim but at the end there is light at the end of the tunnel. He chooses to free himself.

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• Loneliness and Despair Superbly Portrayed

  Suradit2015-01-17

  Sebbe is a very sad, moving story of a teenage boy who is essentially alone and abandoned by everyone around him. His father is gone. His mother is emotionally unbalanced and behaves erratically. He is bullied and humiliated at school. And he's left to deal with it all on his own. It's difficult to describe too much of what actually happens without spoiling the storyline. One example from the many depicted … his mother can't get him a birthday gift, but she finds a winter jacket in the laundry room and steals it. She presents it to Sebbe as a gift. He wears it to school where one of the other students, one who has been relentlessly bullying him, recognizes it as his own and accuses Sebbe of being a thief. His mother allows Sebbe to take the blame for what she did. He forgives her, tells her to forget about it and her response is to tell him she never wanted him and hates him. She kicks him out of the home and even that small, inadequate sense of refuge in his hostile environment is lost to him. The acting is exceptionally good, especially by the young man playing Sebbe. Often there is minimal dialogue, but he projects his despair, hopelessness and the sense of total abandonment painfully well. It would be nice to think that such abuse and cruelty would not exist especially in a country like Sweden, which seems to be so protective and caring for its citizens … but unfortunately we all know that too many children suffer from such callous, truly inhuman behavior even in the so-called "advanced" countries. A very sad, depressing story that was written, produced and acted extremely well.

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• An authentic story of growing up in Sweden for one struggling teenager and much more

  beij2013-03-28

  A simple tale of the teenage boy, Sebbe, living his life in every aspect of dysfunction. Severely bullied at school and often abused by his mother in a drunken state, he never struck back. His emotions were seen suppressed and only occasionally released upon the dumped goods at a local junk yard, which he either hoarded or vandalized. Amongst all the neglect and suffering, Babak Najafi the director managed to afford us a few glimpse into Sebbe's happiness – A bedroom so well-lit by his handy installation of clusters of light bulbs stands in stark contrast to the state of mental darkness he was in. Unlike most Scandinavian productions that tend to explore big issues of underlying social tension, injustice etc. Sebbe is more about the discovery of self and the interpretation of behaviors and morals. At times one may have to negotiate between the story being focused on a boy with resilience or a coward who could never stand up for himself. Without giving away a major part of the plot, I for one was left to question whether we as humans are programmed to seek affection from those that give us life at all cost, even to the detriment of one's self-identity. Running away with the explosives he'd stolen from a nearby yard – a sign of remorse as he seemingly changed his mind about blowing up the school – only then to find out from his mother that she no longer wanted to look after him. Sebbe had to choose, as the film arrives at an open ending.

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• Sombre but inspiring and insightful

  john-plant2017-06-03

  A very well crafted movie about a significant period in a young person's life. Swedish drama doesn't seem to include stereotypes. Rather it portrays people, social environments, and relationships or interactions with luminous wisdom. I found every scene, every frame, every nuance of acting and visual imagery engaging.