Simon & the Oaks
Simon & the Oaks
| 11 October 2012 (USA)
Simon & the Oaks Trailers

Epic story about two families and their friendship and common destiny in Sweden's Gothenburg in the 1940s and 1950s. Told from the perspective of young Simon Larsson, who learns that he's an adopted child who has a Jewish father from Germany. After WWII Simon travels to explore his roots - a journey that leads to the basic mysteries of the human life. After the bestselling novel by Marianne Fredriksson.

Reviews
Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!
BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay
Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.
Nicolas Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies
Kirpianuscus it is the film who makes me consider Bill Skarsgard a great actor. the motif - off course -its performance. but, in same measure, the atmosphere, the dialogues, the science to use details, the feeling to discover a family album, with old pictures, familiar and , in same measure, strange. a war film and the map of the world of a young man. sensitive, vulnerable, strong, brave, viewer and judge, Simon is a guide for the steps from an universe to the other. a guide who seems be reflection of yourself. and this fact does the film a kind of scent. not the story itself but the state of characters, like a large ball remains after the final credits. a film to see. for discover an old way to see the near reality.
talltchr World War II experienced from an oblique angle. The characters are just far enough from the vortex that their lives are spared, but not so far as to avoid its terror or the antisemitism that changes the course of their lives, Jew and gentile alike, by pervasive fear. Special mention should be made of the character Isa played by Katharina Schüttler. She's a young woman who emerged from Auschwitz traumatized and reckless. From the actress's first moment on screen, we see that this is someone we have never encountered before. Perhaps in another generation she might have become Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, et al) but in this film, she's a well of anger and fatalism. She's the wild card that makes Simon realize there are limits to his rebelliousness. Indeed, all the characters test their limits: Karin to have an affair, Erik to maintain his anger and jealousy, Inga to keep either the love of her life or her son, Isak to enter the world, Reuben to satisfy his desires. The film is unfailingly absorbing and, despite a few fanciful scenes with the tree and the clouds, utterly genuine.
Kong Ho Meng What a huge disappointment it was considering all the good critic reviews and the many nominations this film has garnered.Good cinematography and an unconventional storyline, unfortunately do not hide a poorly made script coupled with disastrous acting by some of the actors, where things are unveiled halfway and just disappear without the proper follow-up they deserve. Something like a badly made soap opera.Another aspect that made this movie worse than what it already is is that there were more and more clichés and/or nonsensical actions taken by the characters as we progress further towards the ending. How an adulterous relationship and conflicting parental upbringing managed to avoid wrecking two families' relationship for so long; how a rich well-known Jew did not find a need to go into hiding but instead spent his time meddling into another families' business; the sudden ignorance of a troubled child who after a few years miraculously became a normal adult (and ignored), and how a Holocaust survivor from one of the worst concentration camps behave in such a weird, spoilt-brat manner were completely off the mark!
stensson Two boys meet at school in Gothenburg 1939. They become friends. One is a Jew and one is supposed not to be. One is upper middle class and one comes from a working class background.Quite much is foreseeable here, but the greatest problem is the acting. Not that it's disastrous or even bad during the circumstances, but there are plenty of anachronisms here. From the laboring father, who is something out of the 60s, more than 1939. To the boys, who have a way of staring into the camera, which is common-piece in every Swedish movie, which tries to portrait harsh times. Especially if it's the 40s. "Something is going on inside that boy". The problem is that we know exactly what, when he has those eyes.That is disturbing and takes quality out of this film.