Diagonaldi
Very well executed
Titreenp
SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?
RyothChatty
ridiculous rating
Ava-Grace Willis
Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.
George Wright
Swedish Auto is a movie I found in a used DVD store and I have no regrets about buying it. I will say that for many movie goers it is slow and somewhat introspective. However, I stuck with it because I found the character of Carter, played by Lucas Haas, to be genuine and sincere. Carter is a withdrawn young man but is no dead-end kid. He has some excellent qualities; he's a talented mechanic who applies himself to his job. Ironically, he lost his family in a devastating car accident. He reads, watches movies and shows ambition to move beyond his limited surroundings. The owner of the auto shop appreciates his work ethic and encourages him to get a car. Carter shows interest in a decrepit old automobile that he plans to bring it back to life, i.e. the Swedish auto. Carter, who has taken to stalking two young women, sees this as a way of breaking out of his rut and finding a soul-mate. The young women are opposites: one is a concert musician and the other a working class girl from a troubled family, who Carter takes under his wing. This presents Carter with a dilemma. This soon resolves itself and he moves on with his life. We are left with an ambiguous ending but life often is like that.
TxMike
Filmed in Virginia, the title derives from a couple of things. The main character is a mechanic in a shop called 'Swedish Auto Repair', and during the film the mechanic restores a 1967 Volvo, a Swedish car. Judging by the small budget, no box office information, and very few reviews I would guess not many saw this movie. I found it on Netflix streaming movies and it is a delightful, different little movie.Lukas Haas was a funny-looking kid and that helped him get roles that shot him to fame before he was 10 years old. Now that he has grown into a funny-looking man with large facial features it probably is hard to get 'leading man' roles, but this one suits him just fine. He makes the movie worth seeing.Here he is just known as Carter , probably close to his real age, almost 30. He lost his parents to an accident when he was quite young and has been on his own for a while. He lives in a very spartan apartment that looks like a room in a warehouse, but appropriately appointed for a single guy. He works at Swedish Auto and seems to be the best mechanic there. The owner's adult son also works there but when he isn't having trouble with a task he has an excuse to be away from the job. His dad has to put up with it. Carter overheard some nice violin music through an open window, played by a beautiful young blond lady, early 20s, and he fell in love with her from a distance, but in essence stalked her, 'happening' to be where he knew she would pass, watching her play at night from a roof. You could imagine his fantasy of some day the two of them meeting, falling in love, and living happily ever after.In the meantime the three mechanics often took a lunch break at the local hamburger shop, and the nice girl waiting on them usually was January Jones as Darla . She had her own issues, namely a very sick mother and her mother's mean, abusive boyfriend, so she never was in a rush to get home in the evening. It became clear quickly that she had her eyes on Carter, and she ended up stalking him! Not in a dangerous way, but admiration stalking. So the movie plays out with all of them dealing with their issues as best they could. The situations and dialog are interesting, a good study in human nature and dealing with issues and surprises. SPOILERS: Carter and Darla do in fact get together, she actually is more in love with him than he is with her. In fact, when the pretty musician brings the car to the shop for work Carter actually meets her and is smitten all over. When he calmly relates this to Darla he is surprised she doesn't react. She explains, "You love her like an astronomer loves the moon. You can't really love someone without being with them face-to-face. I love you and you love me." She was sure. After the garage owner dies when a jack lets a car fall on him, the son gets the garage, he tells Carter he has to sell the Volvo he rebuilt, even though the old man had given it to Carter. All the situations are resolved, at least temporarily, when Carter takes the Volvo, then takes Darla and her mother away from the boyfriend and head out of town, ostensibly to start a new life. As they leave we see a flash of an explosion, the mean boyfriend had turned on the unlit kitchen stove burners to kill everyone but only he died when a spark ignited the gas.
Amanda Pavani
I love how the movie treats the themes with delicacy. At some parts of the movie, you just think the characters are probably insane, but they are really captivating, well developed. The best parts about it are: the music, the characters, the silences, and the themes.It is a surprising movie. You start watching it thinking it will be some sort of creepy romance with, hopefully, a romantic ending, but it turns out to be so much more than that. It is funny because it shows an entirely different view of people, what we can expect from them, how we love and even the horrible situations we endure for loved ones.I highly recommend it.
tigerfish50
'Swedish Auto' opens with an excruciatingly slow camera pan across the yard of a Charlottesville auto-repair shop until the screen is filled with the image of a young man sitting in the rusting hulk of a vintage Volvo. This is Carter - a sensitive, greasy-haired loner who needs no further introduction because IMDb cognoscenti will have met his socially inept outsider cousins in numerous other Indie films. Carter's life follows a regular routine - he rises early in his humble abode beside the railroad tracks before heading off to his auto mechanic job. At lunch-break Carter frequents a diner where he gazes ardently at pertly demure waitress Darla, whom he lacks the courage to approach. Carter's eccentricities come into full bloom at dusk - after shutting up the workshop, he habitually stalks a beautiful young violinist from UVA's music school back to her apartment, and observes the girl's practice sessions until she retires for the night. Eventually Carter gets around to stalking Darla back to her own home, where his voyeuristic skills reveal she is being terrorized by her junkie mother's abusive boyfriend. In due course events conspire to break the ice for the shy twosome, and they subsequently embark on a lukewarm romance.Writer/director Derek Sieg struggles to keep his clichéd clunker on the road as Carter begins restoring the vintage Volvo to a gleaming ride fit for his oddball prince and waitress princess. Unfortunately, tedium and implausibility result in total engine seizure long before the film's road-trip conclusion with multiple loose ends fluttering in the slipstream. One suspects that flashing blue lights will shortly appear in 'Swedish Auto's' rear-view mirror, but happily that story is for another day.