Karin (Helen Sjöholm) worries about her son (Jonatan S. Wächter) finding his place in a changing world in SIMON & THE OAKS
SIMON & THE OAKS (Lisa Ohlin, 2012)
The Paris Theatre
4 West 58th St. at Fifth Ave.
Opens Friday, October 12
212-688-3800
www.theparistheatre.com
Nominated for thirteen Swedish Academy Awards, Simon & the Oaks is a soapy, sweeping Scandinavian epic about the search for identity. The first film based on a novel by celebrated Swedish author Marianne Frederiksson, Simon & the Oaks follows the confused, troubled Simon as he grows from a timid boy (Jonatan S. Wächter) into a strapping young man (Bill Skargård, son of Stellan) during the WWII era. Simon loves music and books, but his working-class father, Erik (Stefan Gödicke), wants him to forget about education and instead learn a physical trade. Simon becomes friends with a Jewish boy, Isak (Karl Martin Eriksson, then Karl Linnertorp), whose father, Ruben (Jan Josef Liefers), has moved the family from Germany to escape the Nazis. As Simon starts spending more time with Ruben, Erik becomes angry and resentful, while Simon’s mother, Karin (Helen Sjöholm), develops a dangerous closeness with Ruben, a wealthy businessman whose wife (Lena Nylén) is confined to a sanitarium. Simon is a dreamer, looking out at the horizon believing that anything is possible, talking to the whispering oak by the lake behind his house. But he lives in a changing world where everyone around him has to face startling realities centered around bigotry and genocide while protecting him from a powerful secret. Director Lisa Ohlin (Sex, Hope and Love, Waiting for the Tenor), who experienced some of the same things that Simon does, gives the film a lush, grand feel that often overwhelms its more personal story while including numerous clichéd scenes, particularly between fathers and sons, that detract from the already straightforward narrative. The film works best when Liefers is on-screen, playing a complex character who is fascinating to watch as he calmly moves forward despite the maelstrom that surrounds him. Simon & the Oaks opens October 12 at the Paris Theatre, with Ohlin appearing for a Q&A following the 7:00 screening.