Something Must Break

Stockholm is the setting for this troubled romance between a young self-destructive pre-op transsexual and a straight-looking punk struggling with his bisexuality. Sebastian (Saga Becker) has a dead-end warehousing job, loses his weekends in a haze of booze and self-abasing promiscuity, and is far from happy, until he's rescued from a gay-bashing thug by the leather-jacketed Andreas (Iggy Malmborg), sparking a highly charged liaison. When they're together, all is bliss, but the latter is far from comfortable introducing his new lover to his straight middle-class circle of friends. Sexually forthright without getting too explicit, Ester Martin Bergsmark's film plots a convincing course for their relationship, captures the spontaneity of youthful passions, but suffers from a decidedly tame ending. Still, its point about having the courage to be who you want to be - never mind the disapproval of others - is a positive message, and the androgynous Becker delivers a performance striking enough to warrant all the time the camera spends with him.