New Europe Competition review - AEROBICS - LOVE STORY by Anders Rune

A mentally challenged woman and an obese hopeless dreamer meet and fall in love. Aerobics - Love Story is the feature debut by Swedish filmmaker Anders Rune and was presented in the New Europe Competition of the 22nd Febiofest - Prague International Film Festival.

 

After a prominent career as a director of commercials and music videos, Swedish filmmaker Anders Rune makes his feature debut and chooses to tell the story of a good natured, sweet and yet very unlikely love story. In its apparent simplicity, Rune actually deals with an array of elements quite unfamiliar within the mainstream popular versions of the genre, and also chooses to use elements that are quite delicate to begin with.

 

This is the story of the flourishing love story between a man and a woman. After casually meeting on the internet - an honest and legitimate sign of the times aspect not to be taken for granted - the two instantly show a leaniance towards being able to help each other out of the sadness of their lives. Their flourishing love story represents their one shot at redemption. Only problem is, he is a down and out obese man but more importantly, she is a mentally challenged woman. And much like Terry McMahon showed in his wonderful film Patrick's Day, mentally challenged people are usually forbidden their right to intimacy "for their own good" - in this case, it is her sister who looks after her.

 

Aesthetically, the lack of beautiful models in a romantic comedy is pretty evident and positively unusual as well as undoubtedly ambitious. The performances by the two leading actors, lonely and misunderstood by society in their own ways, are excellent and tastefully balanced. It is for both of these big reasons that the film feels legitimate and the moments of sweetness very genuine. On top of that, at a length of little over an hour and fifteen minutes, Rune's film is mostly quite entertaining. 

 

It's not perfect, and this is certainly true of the ending, when unexpectedly for the sake of a memorable wrap up, on cinematic terms it betrays its good sense and openly pokes fun at the unlikely aesthetic and mental features that was one of its strongest points. Unfortunately, this also undermines the honest approach of the film and feels like a rather rushed and easy finale.

 

Giving credit where credit is due, it is right to praise Rune for choosing to steer clear of the usual crime themed first feature gimmick that is particularly prominent in the Scandinavian territory. For the most part, Aerobics is a good mix of laughs and tenderness, a delightful and crowd pleasing deadpan comedy. But it is certainly ripe, rushed and feels rather unfinished.

Official Trailer "AEROBICS A Love Story" from Agenda Film on Vimeo.