My Life as a Dog

7/10/2023

**An exceptionally well-made film about an ordinary boy experiencing things common to almost all boys his age.** I don't have much experience with Swedish cinema, but what I saw already showed me that it is quality cinema, so it was with some curiosity that I sat down for another film. It centers on a boy, Ingemar, who lives with his brother and mother, who is very sick and unable to control their restlessness. When she dies, the two brothers are separated and Ingemar goes to live with his uncles, who have no children but seem genuinely interested in providing him with a good education. So, it's just another film about growing up, maturing, adolescence, discovering the body and feelings. We've seen a lot of similar things, there's no denying it. Therefore, the film may not be the mos

6/20/2026

The film's title translates a Swedish idiom for rotten luck. That tells you everything about how 12-year-old Ingemar processes the world. He doesn't get angry. He doesn't break down. He finds worse situations and measures himself against them. The dog he keeps returning to is Laika, the Soviet space dog sent up in Sputnik 2 with no plan to bring her back. Ingemar can't release that image. He stacks it against his own circumstances: mother dying of tuberculosis, separated from his brother, shipped off to a small rural town to live with his uncle and aunt. Against Laika's fate, his own pain becomes survivable. That is the grief logic of a kid who hasn't been given better tools. Lasse Hallstrom directs with a lightness that should feel wrong given the subject matter, but doesn't. The fi