She Monkeys (2011) User Reviews

Rivalry and friendship between budding girls on a sports team

[Chris Knipp · 7/10 · 17 April 2011]

Swedish first-timer Lisa Aschan's She Monkeys is like Céline Sciamma's 2007 French coming-of-ager Water Lilies/Naissance des pieuvres, about two girls who bond around a challenging female sport, in Water Lilies water ballet, and here, equestrian gymnastics. There is a popular, or more confident, girl, and the more timid newcomer, though the distinction gets twisted along the way when the strong girl turns out not to be invincible. Here it's introverted Emma (Mathilda Paradeiser) and more experienced equestrian Cassandra (Linda Molin), who become playful friends, and later when Emma turns out to be strong and promising, rivals. This is different from the French film in that the two challenge each other to more real wrongdoing, and Emma has a seven-year-old sister Sara (Isabella Lindquist), whose desire to become a woman and precocious lust for her babysitter cousin Sebastian (Kevin Caicedo Vega) leads her to extravagances of her own. In fact when the energy begins to fade in the Cassandra-Emma relationship, Sara comes in handy by providing comic relief that also pushes boundaries a bit.

She Monkeys may push boundaries a bit more, but it is less successful at showing its two "girlfriends" in a real social context than the French film is. Nonetheless She Monkeys clearly establishes that Lisa Ashan, whose first feature this is as Water Lilies was Sciamma's, is a talent to watch with a distinctive style.

Apflickorna (the original title) is the fifth and last of a series of low budget first films chosen by competition for the Swedish Film Institute's Rookie Project. It won the Gothenberg, Sweden festival's Nordic film prize and critics' award. Seen and reviewed as part of the San Francisco film festival of 2011, this debuted in the US at Tribeca in 2010.

Little Reward, Flat Experience

[atlasmb · 5/10 · 19 September 2013]

I found She Monkeys to be a somewhat confusing film, meaning that the intent of the director was not readily apparent to me.

The tone of this film was more melancholic than playful. And foreboding. That is primarily because the main character, Emma, is a girl who purposefully hides her emotions. Because she is so stone-faced, it is difficult to know what she is thinking or to anticipate what she might do next.

This does add some suspense to the story. And it did keep me involved, wondering where the story was going next.

In the end, I did not find many truths or questions to reward my involvement. Technically, the film was well made. But emotionally, it left me wanting.

Well observed but stops short

[paul2001sw-1 · 6/10 · 22 April 2015]

Lisa Aschen's film 'She Monkeys' is a tenderly observed account of two teenagers (and one younger girl) struggling with the pains of growing up, trying to be selected for a team of equestrian gymnasts. It's subtle, and leaves the inner workings of its protagonists' minds to the viewer's own understanding. The low budget is apparent in the relative absence, given the subject matter, of horses; but it doesn't mean that there isn't some skill in the acting, directing and writing. However, the plot doesn't really go anywhere, and the whole drama feels more like the prelude to another, more forceful story that doesn't actually happen.

Unbelievably boring...

[paul_haakonsen · 3/10 · 16 December 2015]

Alright, the DVD cover has actress Mathilda Paradeiser standing and holding a gun, which pretty much Sells the movie on a wrong Foundation. Sure there was a gun in the movie, but it wasn't a particularly big part of the story or the movie that it should be included on the movie cover.

While the acting of Mathilda Paradeiser (playing Emma) and Linda Molin (playing Cassandra) was quite good and nicely carried the movie, then they were not able to save the awful script and storyline. It was as if director Lisa Aschan was abruptly cut short before having the chance to tie the ends together and actually make this a coherent and interesting story.

"Apflickorna", its original Swedish title, is unfathomably slow paced and took an hour and twenty-four minutes to tell almost nothing. There is a sort of beaten down and depressing sensation all throughout the entire movie, which in itself was a good achievement in setting the mood.

It was a struggle to get through this movie, and the constant hope of it picking up pace and becoming entertaining just never rooted and took place.

Now watched, this movie will be put on the shelf to gather dust and slowly fade into oblivion.

Amazing debut

[stensson · 7/10 · 10 October 2011]

Lisa Aschan is a director rookie and this is really promising.

Two young girls are training voltige, the kind of competition there you make acrobatic moves on a horse's back. They have a relation, complete with hot feelings and jealousy, but without sex. It's a power struggle, but most of all it's a power struggle within one of the girls. Does she want control or life? You can't say.

Great feeling for what the camera can express here. Great cuts, great rhythm. The story is however not so uncommon as we are expected to believe. The quality lies in what the lens registrates. And there will hopefully be much more to come from this director.

Girls left alone and horses ignored

[pauhaa · 3/10 · 19 October 2014]

Watching this film I was reminded of a hard-to-define need for ethical treatment of characters and issues in a film. By that I don't mean films can't describe ethically challenging or ambivalent situations, they should. But there should be a sense of commitment to the characters and the issues. This film was lacking in that. As a result, it felt pointless and disturbing.

The plot centers around two teenage girls who are competing in the sport that consists of doing gymnastics on top of a galloping horse. One, two, three girls on a single horse running in circles to the sound of a whiplash. I would like to see this sport, which completely seems to forget the horse is sentient, forgotten. The film could have used it as a metaphor, but I don't think it did. I think the horse was ignored in the meta level as well. This is the kind of lack of commitment I mean.

Harrowing things happen to the teenage girls and a seven-year-old little sister. The viewer is presented with hardly any tools to understand them or care for them. Thus, it feels they are left alone. There is one illuminating scene though: Cassandra asks Emma what she wants (a question misplaced, as it seems to be Cassandra at that moment who is acting out of unclear desires) and Emma replies "I want to be like I was before".

As far as I can tell, there is nothing wrong with the acting or the technical work of the crew.

She Devils

[YohjiArmstrong · 17 March 2015]

SHE MONKEYS is Swedish, so it's guaranteed that it'll be depressing. It's a small social drama about the relationship between two adolescent girls in an equestrian gymnastics team. Inevitably you have the older, more confident girl and the timid new girl. They bond as friends and compete as rivals but their relationship is thrown into flux when their roles begin to change. There's a lot of just below the surface emotion but thankfully it never boils over into an actual lesbian romance. That said, it never really amounts to much either. There's so much silence that you could accuse the film of being visual poetry or of being boring and be equally right. There's also a weird subplot about the precocious love of the timid girl's younger sister for her babysitter that is borderline creepy/realistic. At the end of the day, you either like this sort of film or you don't.

Flat emotions & no passion destroyed everything

[lukkomarewicz · 5/10 · 7 January 2020]

I have had some level of expectations from this film after reading a description and its plot seemed to be quite interesting. However all has turned into a quite drowsy film with slow action which was promised to be very different. Instead of emotional and passionate relation and even more ardent rivalry with complex scheme of mutual interactions we get a snail-paced development of the plot and two teens who are way too introvertic and timid to be truly passionate in anything. I didn't see here any hard situations with rivalry and any difficult situations, misunderstandings etc. caused by that. For sure not at the level it was expected (and promised) from the beginning. That story could have been interesting if had been directed in more clever and especially emotional way to reveal true passion if two lovers mixed with success & accolade rivalry. If I wanna see passion plus rivalry which leads to obsession I play movies like "Whiplash" or "Prestige".

Watching Paint Dry

[billcr12 · 2/10 · 6 July 2021]

Ignore the movie poster with the lead actress holding a rifle with menace in her eyes. Nothing happens even close to the implied violence. Two teen girls compete for some obscure sport riding horses while doing gymnastics. They come close to a lesbian relationship but it never happens. A seven year old girl acts inappropriately for her age with scenes that made me nauseous. The film goes nowhere and I barely made it through this meaningless drama.

Effectively disturbing and unnerving film about emerging adolescent female sexuality and power.

[runamokprods · 8/10 · 31 October 2016]

More powerfully tense than many thrillers full of action and blood, this finds the terror in the small gestures of growing up, and the enormous implications behind them.

In the main story, adolescent Emma befriends cool girl Cassandra as they train to be part of a team that does gymnastics on horseback. Both friends and rivals, director Aschan manages to load almost every scene between the two with incredible unease. It seems as if at any moment they are either going to tear each others clothes off and make love, or kill each other, or kill someone else -- any and all combinations seem possible as they test their limits on the ragged edge of adulthood.

At the same time, Emma's 7 year old sister Sara is pushed by the world around her to become aware of her body with alternating pride, curiosity and shame, and her nascent sexuality leads to some wildly uncomfortable scenes with the adult men in her family. This never crossed the line into exploitation, but it effectively made me want to jump out of my skin, while making me ponder the deeper thematic and psychological/social issues.

One thing bothered me; the very end of the film seemed to over-simplify the mysterious complexity of much that had preceded it, reducing the story to something more pedestrian, and taking some of the considerable wind out of the film's sails. But this is still one of the better films about the terrors of youthful sexuality I've seen in a long while.

Adored this film.

[rasputin-23 · 8/10 · 3 November 2013]

Yes, this film unravels slowly... like a Swedish winter, but it is a fascinating glimpse, I think, into female psychology in general (not just Swedish). The film is very sly, and you won't appreciate the bitter, yet kinda funny, poetic justice of the plot... until the final scene. Highly recommended. Gorgeous young actresses in the leading roles, and lovely Swedish scenery abounds. The film is poetic and even somewhat oneiric, and, in its glacial ellipticality perhaps owes more to old Ingmar Bergman films than it does to more recent Swedish fare. Indeed, the story of the love/hate relationship between two young women seems a nod to Bergman's 1966 classic, Persona. So universal is the the theme of this film that one could almost comprehend the story without subtitles and not knowing Swedish. A real gem.