This oddly unsatisfying and misfiring sports drama was Sweden’s Oscar submission last year; it fictionalises the real-life case of teen Swedish footballing prodigy Martin Bengtsson who was on the verge of the big time when he signed for Inter Milan in 2003, but quit soon afterwards, suffering from depression and suicidal thoughts. He was put under the extraordinary pressure of being treated like a kid at the club’s youth academy, yet showered with the kind of money that buys sports cars while being subject to the needling suspicion that he could get dropped at any time.
Erik Enge plays Bengtsson, Alfred Enoch plays his friend Ryan and Frida Gustavsson plays his model girlfriend Vibeke; writer-director Ronnie Sandahl (who scripted Borg McEnroe in 2017) can’t quite decide if the problem is with the footballing system generally or with Bengtsson himself as someone with his own mental health vulnerabilities. We get scenes with Bengtsson out clubbing with his mercurial, jealous teammates – though he is shyly and watchfully apart from the real bad behaviour.
