After watching Slim Susie (Smala Sussie) and A Summer Tale (Den bästa sommaren) Ulf Malmros became one of my favourite Swedish film-makers. His ability to tell a good story with perfect pace and add unique characters to it is something you rarely see in Swedish productions. While Slim Susie was kind of a sick all-out comedy, A Summer Tale was more of a romantic drama with comedy-influences. I would say that Bröllopsfotografen/The Wedding Photographer reminds me of both.
Starting off in the small locality of Molkom, we get to follow the main character (Robin) in his regular day-life. The environment as well as the characters and the jokes here definitely feels a lot like taken from Slim Susie, hence I found myself laughing a lot. Robin then travels to Stockholm in order to become a professional photographer, and the best part of this movie is his first days there. The contrasts between the life in the locality and the life in the capital city of Stockholm illustrated by Malmros through Robin's character are pretty much brilliant, at least from a Swedish point of view.
When Robin starts to adapt to his new way of living, the message that Malmros wants to send gets clear. Although at this point, when things turn into more of a romantic drama, the film loses its pace a bit. On the other hand, the transition of Robin, from a typical locality-guy to the wannabe big-city brat, processes a bit too fast. You don't really get an idea of what made him change like he does.
All-in-all, this isn't a new Slim Susie, which in my opinion had a great plot and constant comedy in it. Apart from that though, it got what it takes to be a film worth seeing. The dialog is creative (and often funny of course), the setting is great and the cast do a very good job. I could simply feel Malmros presence throughout the movie, and that is good enough for me.
