The spirit of YA flows through A Part of You (now on Netflix), a Swedish coming-of-ager featuring Young Royals stars Felicia Maxime and Edvin Ryding in key roles. It’s not based on any source material though – it’s an original story from director Sigge Eklund and writer Michaela Hamilton, about grief and loss, a topic that, at this point, might warrant its own section at Blockbuster Video if the place still existed. I was grateful to learn that the film transcends some of the expectations of this particular subgenre, even as it works through some of its cliches. Here’s why it’s worth your time, if you’re up for a sad story.
The Gist: Julia (Zara Larsson) casts a long shadow, and Agnes (Maxime) is one of many who exists in it. That’s not a terrible thing when you’re sisters, though – we meet them as they lie face-to-face in bed, and the elder Julia encourages the relatively demure Agnes to get over her fears and audition for the school play. Julia’s the type to just go grab what she wants, and she lends a little of that bravery to her beloved sibling – but that bravery is also a mask for something else going on. Julia is never far from the center of attention. She glams up in blue eye shadow and a sexy red cami to go to a party, but clashes with their mother Carina (Ida Engvoll), who’d rather she stay home. Going out and getting loaded seems like a common occurrence for Julia. Eventually, they come to a compromise: Julia can go, as long as Agnes goes with her. Julia’s boyfriend Noel (Ryding) drives them to the shindig and we soon see a problem in action as Julia drinks and drinks and drinks and kicks off her heels and climbs on top of a table and gets all eyes on her as she belts out Avicii’s ‘Wake Me Up.’ Does everyone love her or is she, as they say, a hot mess? Hard to tell.
As Agnes reads the email saying she got the part in the play, she overhears Julia and Noel arguing. She walks outside the party and before she and Noel realize what’s happening, Julia drunk-drives the car right into the path of a massive truck. And that’s it. She’s gone. Cut to Carina and Agnes, each curled up in their beds. The house is a mess. Dead flowers, half-eaten plates of food, dishes everywhere. Agnes dusts herself off and goes to school, even though she’s been excused for a bit longer. She comes home to a note from her mother, who’s at Agnes’ grandmother’s. When will she be back? Not soon enough. Agnes goes into Julia’s room, grabs her clothes, smells them, pulls them on, puts on Julia’s makeup, lets her hair down just like Julia. Heads turn towards her now.
Don’t worry, this isn’t a weird psychological doppelganger drama flirting with horror. Agnes is coping, whether she’s conscious of it or not. Noel, who showed a spark of attraction towards Agnes even before Julia died, is also coping, and also confused, and also drawn to her. Agnes hangs out with Julia’s friends, who aren’t sure if this is cool or creepy or both or neither. She goes to drama class, and the emotional soliloquy she has to recite, the centerpiece of the play, deploys metaphors that feel highly relevant to the situation, and everybody listening knows it and feels it. Agnes is losing herself in two roles. She’s coming apart, but can she put herself back together?
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: A Part of You doesn’t adopt the lively YA quirk of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, but more of the serious-bordering-on-maudlin stuff of All the Bright Places or, to offer a better quality example, The Spectacular Now.
Performance Worth Watching: Fittingly, Maxime climbs into Agnes and goes deep, fully committed to a demanding role that requires some tricky maneuvers – playing a character who’s an actress in roles both on a stage and in the reality of the movie. It’s inspired work.
Memorable Dialogue: When Agnes is too self-conscious to participate in a primal-scream exercise in drama class, her teacher unwittingly ignites a spark when he tells her, “We’re all actors. So, try being somebody else.”
Sex and Skin: Sideboob; a teenage makeout session; postcoital snuggling.
Our Take: A Part of You sets its hook early with the first-act tragedy, then intrigues us with Agnes’ subsequent borderline-disturbed, but never wholly implausible actions. Key word being “wholly” – the fill-in-the-empty-space-my-sister-left-by-becoming-her arc is played a shade or two shy of absurdity, and Maxime gives us the hard sell via a terrifically nuanced and moving performance. You’d have to be Ol’ Ironsides to not feel something, anything, as Agnes flails in the midst of intense throes of grief, even when the screenplay challenges our suspension of disbelief.
And so we feel Agnes’ sense of loss intently – and feel frustrated that her mother has left this capable, but fragile teenager to fend for herself. By the third act, though, Agnes’ arc locks into a predictable groove, where we sense a climactic meltdown and pensive denouement coming (and all we can do is hope she’s still alive, or at least of sound mind, to appreciate it). The film is essentially a portrait of a messy grieving process, where our protagonist copes in healthy, creative ways (finding some catharsis through her acting) and destructive ones (boozing, letting things get extra-messy with Noel). Whether you buy into the logic of the particulars of this particular grieving process ultimately doesn’t matter – Maxime’s performance is strong enough to, more often than not, make the pain seem real.
Our Call: Maxime’s performance is a boon for A Part of You, helping it avoid enough of the cliche-pitfalls of weepies and coming-of-age dramas to warrant a watch. STREAM IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
