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Along with one of their daughters, two Swedish sisters make a road trip
to see their dying mother in Portugal.
Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Lovisa Sirén
Starring: Zhala, Bahar Pars, Nadja Rosenberg, Susan Taslimi
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Those who voted Remain in the Brexit referendum may want to look away
from director Lovisa Sirén's Maya Nilo (Laura), which sees its protagonists casually crossing several European
borders. Come to think of it, everyone else should probably look away
too as somehow a road movie that takes in Sweden, Denmark, Germany,
France, Spain and Portugal is remarkably dull.
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The journey is set in motion when Stockholm resident Maya (popstar
Zhala) learns that her Portuguese mother is dying of cancer back
in Portugal. Maya's young son Sami lives with her mother, and so Maya
decides she should head to Portugal to retrieve the boy before his
father takes him. Maya tries to convince her sister Nilo (Bahar Pars) to loan her a car, but Nilo is unsympathetic, having long been
estranged from her mother. Maya, who likes to act on whims regardless of
the consequences, takes the car anyway, along with Nilo's 13-year-old
daughter Laura, who wants to meet up with a boy in Germany she knows
from online. Before they can cross the bridge to Denmark, Nilo catches
up with the pair and reluctantly agrees to join them on a road trip to
Portugal.
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Sirén employs a sisterly dynamic we've seen many times before. Maya is
a free-living, some might say irresponsible flibbertigibbet while Nilo
is a practical family-oriented type. We expect them to learn a thing or
two from each other, but in this case it's a one-way street with Nilo
gradually coming around to her sister's way of thinking, while Maya only
gets more irresponsible the more ground they cover, even getting
arrested for swearing at a policeman at one point. The addition of the
teenage Laura is an odd one, as she spends most of the journey sitting
quietly in the backseat and never really contributes anything of note to
the narrative.
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Road movies often take their narrative cues from
The Wizard of Oz – it's all about the friends you make
along the way – but the central trio here never encounters any
interesting supporting characters. Everyone they meet is portrayed as an
obstacle, which makes Maya and Nilo come off as misanthropic
narcissists. At one point they steal a man's car, a crime staged in a
cheap attempt to have us cheer on these "Queens," but one which just
makes them even harder to warm to. Crude national stereotypes are
bandied about, with Germans referred to as Nazis (ironic, given recent
developments in Swedish politics) and French men portrayed as horndogs.
There are none of the imparted lessons the protagonists of these movies
usually receive – this is a road trip where nobody takes the time to
look out the window and appreciate the world they're passing by. As it
chugs to its final destination, you may find yourself asking "Are we
there yet?"
Maya Nilo (Laura) plays at the
BFI London Film Festival from October 15th.
