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You, the Living

Play trailer Poster for You, the Living 2007 1h 35m Musical Comedy Play Trailer Watchlist
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98% Tomatometer 42 Reviews 80% Popcornmeter 5,000+ Ratings
In the Swedish city of Lethe, people from different walks of life take part in a series of short, deadpan vignettes that rush past. Some are just seconds long, none longer than a couple of minutes. A young woman (Jessica Lundberg) remembers a fantasy honeymoon with a rock guitarist. A man awakes from a dream about bomber planes. A businessman boasts about success while being robbed by a pickpocket and so on. The absurdist collection is accompanied by Dixieland jazz and similar music.
You, the Living

What to Know

Critics Consensus

Composed of humorous sketches of human behavior, Roy Andersson's You, the Living is an eccentric but highly entertaining and unforgettable work.

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Critics Reviews

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Donald Clarke Irish Times In less skilful hands, such an enterprise could appear arch and disjointed, but Andersson allows certain common visual themes and stylistic ticks to bind the picture together into a profoundly satisfactory whole. Sep 23, 2020 Full Review Ben Kenigsberg Time Out Rated: 1/5 Nov 17, 2011 Full Review Kevin Thomas Los Angeles Times You, the Living suggests that we would do well to discover the joy we find in each other that so often goes along with the pain. Rated: 3.5/5 Sep 18, 2009 Full Review Paul Kanieski KSQD Community Radio You, the Living is a showcase for the distinctive aesthetic Andersson carefully honed while directing over 400 commercials. Jul 21, 2023 Full Review Philip French Observer (UK) This is a funny, sad, cruel film, both crystalline and puzzling, hypnotic in its intensity. Sep 23, 2020 Full Review Jim Ross TAKE ONE Magazine Every so often, you watch a film so strikingly different from anything else you have seen recently it can be quite a challenge to decipher your own reaction to it. Feb 13, 2020 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Simon T Roy Andersson is the Jacques Tati of Swedish cinema. Drily bleakly funny, his films are almost plotless, a chain of surreal sequences, the camera locked off, his actors usually affectless when not screaming. In a grey city a collection of unhappy pale-faced citizens wrestle with the small vicissitudes of living. Even their dreams offer no solace. Are they even alive? Uniquely engrossing. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 11/14/23 Full Review Audience Member Andersson knows how to create simultaneously naturalistic and surreal scenes that are relatable, poetic and even life-affirming. "Du levande" has a lot of those and the result is not only eye-catching but also occasionally resonant and funny. Yet at the same time it's merely the sum of its parts and nothing more. The first twenty minutes are the strongest: as soon as it becomes apparent that the many vignettes will never come together to convey anything concrete, they start to lose their power. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/11/23 Full Review jordan m This trilogy as a whole didn't grip me the way it seems to have other people, but this installment is the best one and it really is quite good. It suffers from the same diminishing returns as the others where its premise of disconnected vignettes is just not strong enough to sustain a feature-length movie but several scenes in this one were genuinely funny and the half-hearted attempt at social commentary they put at the end was decent for what it was. The best part by far was the lighting; as a person who maxes out the brightness on every videogame I deeply appreciated them practically bleaching every scene with light. Also, this feels a little weird to even write, but the sound effects were noticeably good. Maybe it's because there wasn't much else to distract me from them but every sound effect was mixed well enough that it sounded like it came from the scene instead of being piped in. Anyway, even with some strong scenes it felt like they were dragging things out so as to make it to their 90-minute goal. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review luca j Roger Ebert described it as "It is flawless in what it does, and we have no idea what that is." Which is very accurate - although I think I would have enjoyed 'what it does' more if it was a little shorter. It was very good though, utterly hilarious in places and heartbreaking in others, and it's totally unique in what it is and how it looks Rated 4 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member In a sad world and a sad city, sad people lead sad lives and complain that they hate their jobs and nobody understands them. The result is in some ways a comedy with a twist of the knife, and in other ways, a film like nobody else has ever made. Its director is Roy Andersson of Sweden. I've also seen "Songs From the Second Floor" and A Pigeon Sat On a Branch Reflecting On Existence". They are truly unique films of a singular type. "Songs..." is the one I still enjoyed the most, but this one is also a pretty remarkable movie, made with meticulous attention to detail in the sparse sets, that do so much to help set the sad, maudlin, desperate but also very familiar and relatable tone. The acting, again, is performed by unknowns, giving it even more authenticity by the rawness of their performances. But don't let all this fool you into thinking it's just one huge bummer. Andersson is quite skilled at bringing out laughs with his use of the absurd, the ridiculous, and the darkly comical in everyday life. If a sketch/scene or two get you feeling too lost, down or disinterested, the next one is liable to have you laugh out loud. Also, don't piss off your barber. 3.8 stars Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/26/23 Full Review Audience Member Told in a series of comedic vignettes, "You, the Living" is an expertly-crafted look at the human experience, while also expressing a nation's fear and fascination of wartime. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/27/23 Full Review Read all reviews
You, the Living

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Movie Info

Synopsis In the Swedish city of Lethe, people from different walks of life take part in a series of short, deadpan vignettes that rush past. Some are just seconds long, none longer than a couple of minutes. A young woman (Jessica Lundberg) remembers a fantasy honeymoon with a rock guitarist. A man awakes from a dream about bomber planes. A businessman boasts about success while being robbed by a pickpocket and so on. The absurdist collection is accompanied by Dixieland jazz and similar music.
Director
Roy Andersson
Producer
Pernilla Sandstrom
Screenwriter
Roy Andersson
Production Co
Sveriges Television, Thermidor Filmproduktion, arte France Cinéma, Style Jam, Parisienne de Production, WDR/Arte, Roy Andersson Filmproduktion AB, Posthus Teatret, 4 1/2
Genre
Musical, Comedy
Original Language
Swedish
Release Date (DVD)
Jan 12, 2010
Box Office (Gross USA)
$21.4K
Runtime
1h 35m
Aspect Ratio
Flat (1.66:1)