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How sad is this?

Great Film overall

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

This is one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time.Lilya lives a normal life (mum + mum's boyfriend) in a crappy neighborhood. Suddenly her mum decides to leave to the US with the boyfriend to the US, leaving Lilya alone. The mum says she'll call Lilya sometime to ask her to come to the US but tells her own boyfriend otherwise ("it's just us"). So the mum abandons Lilya in the apartment. The mum leaves her daughter some money, enough for one trip to the convenient store, but not enough to pay the rent. Lilya refuses to hug her mom, but then changes her mind and runs dramatically to the car for a hug. She screams "mama! mama!" and tears flow from both. She then slides into the mud on her knees in slow motion (no really, in slow motion), covered in mud, crying, as the mum drives off. Then a dog comes (still in slow motion) to the filthy Lilya covered in mud crying on her knees.That was the first sign that this is a terrible film. It was so poor that I almost recommend to people to watch it. But don't.Lilya is forced to move to her aunt's house because no one can pay the rent. The aunt takes her to an absolute dump where the previous tenant died. The aunt says it's warm, there's a fridge, running water, etc. The next day the power goes out because the aunt didn't pay the bill. So no hot water, no fridge, no heat, no light. Lilya has to use candles from now on.If you feel that that isn't contrived, just wait, it gets better. I'm still in the first part of the film. The real story didn't get started yet.So Lilya goes out with her friend who tells her of easy money being a prostitute. When her friend got caught with the money, she told her dad that it was Lilya's money, that Lilya is a prostitute. Her dad makes her return the money. Now everyone calls Lilya a whore. People throw things at her. She can't walk on the street anymore, so she runs home. That's when she discovers the power is out. It just gets worse and worse.This is pure exploitation. It's tragedy porn. There is zero subtlety in this film. There's a scene in the first 15 minutes where an 11 year old boy attempts suicide, just to add to the crap. He is thrown out of the house by his mad father. He smokes glue and dreams of a wife baking him fresh bread. Moodysson found a way to sell people a crappy film with a Russian veneer and everyone is falling for it. His other films are right here to see on IMDb. Container 5.2/10. A Hole in My Heart 4.6/10. He makes some shorts, a TV movie, a documentary. This is his third feature film.He made a film about refugees, he made one about pornography, he made another one about prostitution (and AIDS? - Mammoth 2009), so this one is just another in the same vein or should I say formula?If you really want to watch something from this director, watch "We Are the Best!" - possibly an accidental success in his career.

This movie suggests that life is dreary, boring and depressing in the general area of ex-USSR countries, and in the winter things go from bad to worse. The people are mean, poor drunkards, the scenery consists of gray concrete blocks and there is nothing to do but smell glue. Well, I'm from Finland, and I've visited Estonia, Ukraine and Russia and I have to say that the movie does its portrayal jokingly and lovingly. Obviously there are all kinds of depressing situations all over the world and I don't see that the movie is singling out this area. What it is saying is that these hellish circumstances are reality for some, that there exists darkness and filth in the world, and it is easy to forget, or ignore, living in a first-world apartment complex. It also shows how thin the line between 'first-world' and 'ghetto' can be.It's a tragic story of a girl, an individual, but into her story there is loaded a lot of social commentary. It is difficult to discuss the movie without delving into its agenda, its subject, its political themes. It's a movie about human trafficking, a touchy subject and a touching one, but where Liam Neeson's 'Taken' uses that backdrop to show us a fast-paced action thriller, Lukas Moodysson's 'Lilja 4-Ever' knows how difficult saving people truly is and how deep-rooted the issues here are.

If you're in the mood for a happy Hollywood ending, don't watch Lilja 4-Ever. Unlike Taken, Trade, or The Whistleblower, to name a few, this film is bleak, unadulterated, raw, and incredible. This film sews your eyes open so that you cannot close them to the reality of poverty, suicide, and the sex trade. Lilja 4-Ever, forces you to come face-to-face with real issues, and there is not a single minute of this movie that sugarcoats these issues.Lilja 4-Ever is not only one of the best films on prostitution that I've seen, but it is one of the best foreign films I've seen. It is loosely based on the true story of Dangoule Rasalaite, a sixteen- year-old girl who committed suicide in Malmö, Sweden, after being sold into sex slavery. Lukas Moodysson, director and writer, read Rasalaite's story in the paper one morning, giving him the idea to create a film.Actress Oksana Akinshina, as Lilja, is absolutely spectacular. Her performance is flawless: her portrayal of sixteen-year-old Lilja is both heart-wrenching and awe- inspiring. I found that as I watched this film, I became more and more attached to Akinshina's character solely because she was relatable. Moodysson's writing was beyond effective to break hearts with the realization that every human life is valuable and deserving of love and empathy. Lilja 4-Ever could have been filtered through artistic angles and shots, and it could have undergone hours and hours of editing, but it didn't. This is the brilliance of Lukas Moodysson. Yet again, he presents us with something real.The authenticity of this film was what set it apart, what made it special. Another aspect in which it was more realistic than others was in the story line. It presented to us a typical girl and a typical life. Lilja and her mother live alone in a small inner-city, low- income apartment in Estonia. . Lilja's mother meets a guy online and abandons Lilja to move to his home in the U.S. Soon, Lilja meets the love of her life. Andrej gives her a ride home from the club (she goes out to sell herself) and tells her he doesn't want to sleep with her. He takes her on a date and buys her everything she wants. A couple weeks later, Andrej tells Lilja that he is moving to Sweden and that he can find her a job picking vegetables. He gives her a fake passport but soon tells her that he cannot join her. Lilja travels alone to Sweden and is met by Andrej's boss, who puts her in a car and locks her into an apartment, which Lilja finds strange. The next evening, she services her first trick. This is the reality of the sex trade and how most victims are lured into it. The word "pimp" is never used, and "prostitute" isn't mentioned. Lilja, like millions of others, slowly falls into this life. It is not by choice; it is by necessity, naïveté, and empty promises. This long, slow and painful journey into the sex trade is reality, and Lilja 4-Ever doesn't shy away from telling us. It happens to our children, siblings, and friends, right under our noses. It devours us and leaves us empty, and in some cases, it kills us. The bleakness of the sex trade is real, and it would be foolish to turn a blind eye to it.Do I recommend this film? Most definitely.

I did have a little hitch with the subtitles at first, but as ever, after five minutes I completely forgot about that.A film like this reverberates with an impending sense of doom because you just know what's going to happen to Lilya in the cesspool of life, falling downwards and probably never resurfacing again.Even though you can sense life is going to get progressively worse for Lilya, you're never sure to what extent things will spiral out of control, or if the situation will ever start to get better. What's important is whether or not you care! Fortunately, I cared a lot, probably because I had a heavy crush on Lilya, but there's a bit more to it than that.Lilya just seems to take events on the chin and deal with it in her own way, which is surprising and somewhat inspiring. No hysterics, just an ultimate, immature belief that things are going to improve by taking each little step at a time and making another, probably misinformed, decision.If I was in her situation, would I have reacted in the same way? Would I have had any choice in the matter? These are questions that cannot be answered easily. One minute she's a perfectly normal person, growing up in what seems like a normal family and then, suddenly, she's washed along by the tide of life and its very difficult decision-making process.One of the easiest reviews I've ever written because I feel so clear in my feelings about the film. I liked it a lot and recommend this to adults who like different types of films and aren't too squeamish.