Play

Running time: 118 mins

Three young boys find themselves caught up in a game with no rules and no way they can see to stop playing.

Using a series of actual events in Goteborg, Sweden as a springboard, Play presents a juvenile microcosm of role-playing, group dynamics, and racial stereotyping as older boys manipulate a younger trio in unnerving fashion. Using a simple almost anti-cinematic device to stunning effect, the film traps us emotionally inside the game, unwilling participants as much as the onscreen boys themselves.

This is audacious filmmaking: controversial, deceptively simple without ever being minimalistic, each scene a tour de force. Though there are moments of unexpected humor, the overall effect is harrowing. Questions with answers often too disturbing to consider, chilling in its political ambiguity, this is a film not easily forgotten.

- Charlie Cockey