THE UNTHINKABLE (2018 - Swedish)

Studio:      Magnet Releasing
Director:    Crazy Pictures
Writer:      Crazy Pictures, Christoffer Nordenrot
Producer:  Crazy Pictures
Stars:     Christoffer Nordenrot, Jesper Barkselius, Lisa Henni, Pia Halvorsen

Review Score:

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Summary:

Fractured relationships fight to reconnect when Sweden falls under assault from unknown attackers.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

December 2005 – As 16-year-olds in the small Swedish town of Vanga, Alexander Stenberg fosters a romance with Anna over their shared love of playing piano. Alex also flies with his father Bjorn, an armchair conspiracy theorist, in a personal plane to spy on a Russian tanker.

Alex asks his mother Klara for a guitar. Bjorn stresses that their family cannot afford it.

At Christmas, Bjorn prepares to surprise Alex with a guitar he built himself. Bjorn becomes disappointed and then angry when he discovers Klara bought Alex a guitar. Bjorn takes both guitars to his workshop and destroys them in frustration.

Alex overhears Bjorn arguing with Klara about him. Fed up with his ongoing verbal abuse and temper, Klara leaves Bjorn.

Alex goes to see Anna before she moves to Stockholm with her mother Eva. Alex is unable to muster the courage to give Anna sheet music for a song he wrote for her. Still hurt by his parents’ separation, Alex instead shouts at Anna without telling her what is wrong. Alex allows Anna to walk away and leave.

Alex decides to leave home. Bjorn inadvertently shoves Alex when he tries physically preventing his son from leaving. Alex moves in with his uncle Erik.

Alex grows up to become a successful musician 12 years later. Determined to purchase the piano from the church where he played with Anna, Alex quits working for Sharokh to go his own way.

Explosions throughout Stockholm put Sweden under assault from unknown attackers. Erik informs Alex that Klara died. Alex tells Erik he will inform Bjorn, but having had no contact with his father since he left home, Alex doesn’t. Alex goes through old mementos and finds the sheet music he wrote for Anna.

Bjorn tells his coworkers Konny and Lasse at the Vanga transformer station that he believes Russians terrorists are trying to take control of Sweden’s energy exports. Konny and Lasse laugh off Bjorn’s conspiracy theory.

Bjorn finds a suspicious man claiming to be picking berries outside the transformer station. When Bjorn asks the man for identification, the man knocks Bjorn unconscious with a shovel.

After he recovers, Bjorn calls the police but is unable to get through their automated phone system. Bjorn calls Konny to tell him what happened, but Konny doesn’t take him seriously. Bjorn goes to Lasse’s house and sees signs of a struggle. Bjorn unsuccessfully searches all over town for his assailant. Concerned that Vanga’s power grid is being targeted, Bjorn gathers equipment from his workshop to defend the station.

Alex returns to Vanga for his mother’s funeral. Alex finds Anna playing piano in the church. Anna reveals that she moved back to be with her grandmother Farmor after her mother Eva became preoccupied with her job as a government official. Alex and Anna rekindle their romance. Alex spends the night with Anna.

Bjorn builds makeshift contraptions to booby trap the transformer station. Bjorn imagines calling his son to make sure Alex is safe.

With the country on high alert, the police sequester Eva with other officials inside the House of Parliament. Eva sneaks out of the building to try finding Anna amid the commotion.

Alex discovers that Anna is actually married to an army officer named Kim and has a five-year-old daughter named Elin. Feeling misled, Alex abruptly leaves Anna’s house upset.

It begins raining. A truck suddenly sideswipes Alex’s car. The truck’s driver staggers around as though entranced. Other cars begin crashing as additional people show signs of confusion.

A police officer stops Eva’s vehicle, but becomes distracted when more cars continue crashing. Eva sees the House of Parliament building explode in the distance.

Alex rushes to the church to collect Anna and her grandmother Farmor and take them to safety. Air raid sirens send other civilians scrambling to escape in their vehicles.

Vanga station becomes overloaded when all other facilities on the power grid go down. Bjorn uses his improvised devices, fists, and explosives to defend the station when Russian soldiers wearing gas masks infiltrate. Bjorn unmasks one of the dead men as his attacker from earlier.

Swedish soldiers mobilize in the rain to board helicopters. The soldiers begin succumbing to trances of sudden confusion.

Alex, Anna, and Farmor become caught in a gridlock of fleeing civilians near the power station. Birds begin falling from the sky. Farmor reveals that Anna actually moved back to Vanga in case Alex ever returned one day.

Military helicopters start crashing, prompting everyone to flee on foot. A car violently hits Alex in the commotion as everyone rushes to the transformer station. Anna pulls Alex inside as the station’s automated doors close. Konny, who is among the civilians who made it to safety, screams to go back for his wife Julia who is still outside. After a short time, the people outside stop pounding on the doors.

Bjorn explains to the survivors that they are Sweden’s last standing power station. Bjorn tends to his injured son while Anna goes back outside to search for her daughter Elin.

Swedish soldiers apprehend Eva and take her to a bunker. Eva learns that Russian terrorists contaminated the rain with a chemical that effectively gives people the equivalent of Alzheimer’s within 15 minutes of exposure.

Eva insists on broadcasting a warning to the public, which divides the soldiers in the room. Kim sides with Eva and ends up shooting his commanding officer Emil, who in turn shoots another soldier. Eva ultimately makes the radio broadcast.

Alex regains consciousness inside the power station. He and his father have a contentious confrontation in which they air their longstanding grievances. Alex tells Bjorn that Klara died.

As the survivors listen to Eva’s broadcast, Alex goes outside to find Anna. Anna returns with Elin. Anna believes Kim died. Alex and Anna return underground with Elin to warn everyone that enemy helicopters are approaching.

Alex goes to find Bjorn while the other survivors evacuate. Alex and Bjorn repair a radio to communicate with the army.

Eva and Kim have an uncomfortable conversation about their fractured family. When he receives Bjorn’s radio call, Kim advises that everyone seek shelter in the church. Alex cuts the line when he realizes they are speaking with Anna’s husband.

Following another argument, Alex beats up his father before leaving Bjorn behind. Eva dies in a firefight between Swedish and Russian soldiers.

The civilian survivors sneak through the woods past enemy operatives. Konny sees his wife entranced. The Russians blow up Vanga station.

Alex becomes pinned down by enemy fire as he flees to his father’s home. Bjorn unexpectedly arrives in his plane to defend his son from a Russian chopper. In Bjorn’s outdoor workshop, Alex discovers remnants of the guitar his father built for him in 2005, which Alex never knew about.

Anna, Elin, and Farmor take refuge with other survivors inside the nearby church. Bjorn takes out the Russian chopper, which crashes into the church and destroys its roof.

Bjorn’s plane crashes into his workshop and explodes. Alex sees Bjorn stagger out and cradle the broken guitar before dying.

It begins raining again. Alex walks to the church where he reconnects with Anna. Alex reveals that Kim is alive and apologizes for not telling Anna earlier. Alex presents Anna with the sheet music he wrote when they were younger. Alex asks Anna if things would have been different had he stayed in touch. As rain continues pouring in through the broken roof, Alex goes to the piano to play the song they performed together in 2005.

While Alex and Anna mentally reminisce separately, alternate flashbacks show Alex giving Anna the music in 2005, leading to a happy relationship between the two of them. Succumbing to the ongoing downpour’s effects, Alex forgets how to play piano. Kim arrives to pull Anna away from the rain as Alex is left standing in an entranced state.

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Review:

Knowing little about it other than what was listed on IMDb and in the Screamfest screening guide, a pair of prejudicial concerns tempered my enthusiasm going into “The Unthinkable.” First, IMDb listed the runtime at two hours and nine minutes. As age goes up, patience goes down. Nowadays, the prospect of locking into a theater seat for any period over 100 minutes makes me anxious.

Additionally, “The Unthinkable’s” creation is credited simply to ‘Crazy Pictures.’ According to their bio, Crazy Pictures is a Swedish film collective formed by five friends who jointly handle directing, producing, and all other major duties on their projects. Frankly, the idea of an unproven outfit with a flip name like ‘Crazy Pictures’ making their first feature, a portion of which was crowdfunded, didn’t instill me with confidence that I was in for a professionally polished motion picture.

Let me tell you, my presumptions couldn’t have been more wrong. By the end of its duration, I wished there was another hour so I could stay under “The Unthinkable’s” spell even longer.

More importantly, Crazy Pictures unequivocally raises the bar sky high for what an independent project can be capable of accomplishing. These are not careless kids playing make-believe in front of a camera. If you’re an indie filmmaker and “The Unthinkable” doesn’t ignite an inspirational inferno to exponentially elevate your own efforts, get out of the game.

Clearly, enough cash existed that “low budget” isn’t an accurate descriptor. But whatever the modest amount of money they worked with was, Crazy Pictures makes their movie look like $100 million dollars. Seriously, “The Unthinkable” left me absolutely awestruck with every gut-wrenching emotion and incredible image vividly painted onscreen.

Several interconnected relationships form the interpersonal drama at the story’s center, though Alex and Anna are the anchors. Most of the movie takes place in 2017, but it begins in 2005. In one of the film’s few immersion breakers that become jagged pills to swallow, Christoffer Nordenrot and Lisa Henni are too mature to believably embody their 16-year-old selves. Weight loss and wigs can only do so much. At least the buildup of their background doesn’t remain in the past overlong.

Alex and Anna foster fated love only to lose it due to cowardly choices. Fractured parental bonds pour more pain onto their persons. Growing apart puts adult incarnations of Alex and Anna at separate stations in life, both of which exhibit outward success internally scarred by their origins.

“The Unthinkable” juggles plentiful melodrama, yet always grounds these arcs in relatable empathy. Part of the process for fitting realism into fiction involves a lens that allows organic moments to naturally come to the camera.

Dialogue exchanges are frequently framed in three-quarter views from behind the back or a shoulder. Because of such unobtrusive behavior, scenes don’t seem staged for the benefit of the camera. When the camera positions itself outside a doorway while Alex talks on the phone, the effect is of eavesdropping on an activity taking place whether the audience knows about it or not. “The Unthinkable’s” world feels like it exists outside the confines of the film, and the camera just happens to capture enough pieces to tell an emotionally affecting story.

Characterizations come constructed with equally careful consideration. Alex’s father Bjorn plays a big part in the past as well as the present. Bjorn is prone to fits of anger, yet he takes his temper out on objects, establishing violent tendencies without making him a physically abusive ass. This terrific technique portrays a flawed person without forcing viewers to despise him. Bjorn actually ends up stoking more heroic sympathy than Alex, whose incessant sulking swabs him with unattractive selfishness.

“The Unthinkable” soaks itself in so much ordinary drama that when extraordinary events eventually occur, there’s no notion to second-guess any implausibility. No matter the circumstance, characters regard each situation seriously. Whether a setup calls for conversation or for chaos, the filmmakers address each scene with sincerity. As a result, the audience accepts “The Unthinkable” at face value due to its unpretentious presentation.

Astounding explosions, crashes, and firefights hit Michael Bay levels of cinematic style and breathtaking intensity. I can’t remember the last time I gasped out loud at a movie, yet “The Unthinkable” amazed me multiple times with the sheer scope of its ambition. Straight drama morphs into a tense paranoia thriller, but packs powder kegs of pulse-pounding action too.

If there is any one criticism of “The Unthinkable” that can be difficult to defend, it’s that the movie goes deep with sentimentality. I heard one person audibly guffaw at a particular heartstring rip during the fiery finale. However, I don’t think he laughed because the scene didn’t land or seemed silly. It sounded more like an involuntary reaction to realizing the filmmakers had the surprising guts to take things as far as they do, and actually earn enough suspension of disbelief to make the moment work. What I’m referring to is no more absurd than what ‘Rosebud’ means to Charles Foster Kane.

“The Unthinkable” simply dares to be that bold of a movie. What truly makes it resonate is the underlying theme of reconciling with regret. Alex, Anna, and Bjorn reflect our shortcomings and remind us of similar mistakes we’ve made. Seeing ourselves hurting and healing against a backdrop of unimaginable danger shatters the heart while shaking the senses with stunning sights and sounds. I honestly don’t know how Crazy Pictures pulled off a production this impressive.

NOTE: The film’s Swedish title is “Den blomstertid nu kommer.”

Review Score: 90

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