Movie Review: We Are the Best! sees punk rock rule a group of teens

IF you are born with the right set of ears, you don’t just listen to punk rock. You live it. That’s the message behind We Are the Best!

We Are the Best! (MA15+)

Director: Lukas Moodysson (Show Me Love)

Starring: Mira Barkhammar, Mira Grosin, Liv LeMoyne.

Rating: ***1/2

If you are born with the right set of ears, you don’t just listen to punk rock. You live it.

And if you are lucky enough to fall in with the right set of friends at the right time, you play it.

Such are the lessons learned by the three young heroines of We Are the Best!, an infectiously exuberant celebration of breaking the rules by breaking the sound barrier.

The year is 1982. In the Swedish city of Stockholm, 13-year-old best friends Bobo (Mira Barkhammar) and Klara (Mira Grosin) have decided to start their own punk band.

Banded together by punk rock ... a scene from We Are the Best!

Neither can sing or play a note, but that’s not the point. Their lives as permanent outsiders are already generating plenty of song ideas. All they need is the input of someone who knows what they’re doing.

Enter another outsider, Hedvig (Liv LeMoyne). Teased mercilessly by the entire school for her devout religious beliefs, Hedvig is also a gifted guitarist and arranger. Bobo and Klara lure her into the fold.

Coming of age tale ... Swedish movie We Are the Best!

A sound — their sound, no-one else’s — begins to take shape.

This is a lovely, lively film about a certain age and state of mind where anything still seems possible, and anyone not on board with that can go to hell.

The performances are fun, unforced and definitely uninhibited, as is the direction of Lukas Moodysson.

If you’re still basking in the dreamy afterglow of Boyhood, this defiant shriek of girlhood will snap you of it in seconds flat.

Originally published as Movie Review: We Are the Best! sees punk rock rule a group of teens