2019 was a big year for movies about classism. The most popular one out of the lot was Parasite, which not only talked about the massive economic chasm that exists between the upper and the lower classes but also highlighted how it leads to a lack of class solidarity among the lower classes. Knives Out was a pointed commentary on how the wealthy can’t even imagine sharing their property and riches with the child of an immigrant, even though, morally and ethically speaking, the latter had more claim on their inheritance than the former. Article 15 showed that it’s pointless to talk about class divide without bringing up caste, and the list goes on. While, in real life, the COVID-19 pandemic underscored the fact that the aforementioned chasm between classes is deeper than we had imagined, entertainment took a weird pivot into celebrating “posh behavior” under the guise of “critiquing” it. And now, with movies like Delicious and, the topic of today’s discussion, An Honest Life, it looks like storytellers are hellbent on turning the “eat the rich” trend into a “hate the poor” movement.
Mikael Marcimain’s An Honest Life, written by Linn Gottfridsson, tells the story of Simon, who comes to Lund to study law. But as soon as he steps foot in the city, which is in the middle of political turmoil, he runs into a group of thieves robbing a store who treat him kindly after he is injured during the riots. He meets his elite roommates, Ludvig and Gustaf, who essentially bully him all the time. At the university, he sort of befriends Fredde and Alice, but he doesn’t really form a bond with any of them because his mind is still stuck on those burglars that he came across. Coincidentally, he is approached by Max, who essentially seduces Simon to join the group who call themselves the “bandits,” which is composed of Dinah, Robin, Gustaf, and their ringleader, Charles. These modern-day Merry Men read poetry, quote anarchists, and rob the wealthy because they believe that they should steal from the upper class if they are unwilling to share. However, when one of their operations goes sideways, Simon comes to the realization that maybe he was better off trying to be an amateur lawyer than a violent criminal.
I can’t even say that Linn’s heart was in the right place while writing An Honest Life, because she portrays everyone who talks about anarchy, socialism, communism, or basically anything that’s against capitalism as the scum of the earth, while sympathizing with the rich because they have to breathe the same air as these delinquents. Her narrative wears the mask of “eat the rich” because that has been in vogue for quite a while. But it doesn’t take very long for that mask to start slipping, exposing her “solve poverty by getting rid of the poor” mentality, as she transforms the “bandits” into drug-addicted, sex-addicted, morally reprehensible monsters. Meanwhile, the characters representing the wealthy class say stuff like, “Well, we are the ones creating jobs.” And this misunderstanding of what’s wrong with capitalism isn’t accidental at all. Linn is clearly aware of the kind of narratives that are spun by big media houses and politicians whose pockets are lined by capitalists to get them to malign anyone who is trying to talk about the calculated destruction of art, education, health, and infrastructure. And she is using those talking points as the foundation of her film, destroying any form of nuance on topics such as class consciousness and class solidarity. Heck, she even blames two immigrants for the desecration of Swedish culture in the worst way imaginable.
In the hands of a competent filmmaker, Linn’s hate-filled propaganda against the working class and those hovering around the poverty line would have been used as fuel to take the ever-increasing divide between every strata of society into the stratosphere. Fortunately, Mikael isn’t one. Yeah, he employs a few split-diopter shots here and there. He throws a bunch of sex scenes into the mix to “spice things up.” There’s a film-grain-filled look to his frames. But that’s all there is in An Honest Life: aesthetics. The editing, from the first frame to the last, is god-awful. There are conversation scenes, where the most basic information is being conveyed, that are cut to pieces with the cinematic equivalent of a grater. It’s painful to even look at. The overall pacing is just horrid. There’s hardly 20 minutes worth of film in the story, but Mikael takes it upon himself to stretch it to nearly 120 minutes in order to bludgeon the audience into hating anybody and everybody that’s against capitalism. He even fails to extract any good performances from his cast. Simon Loof and Nora Rios take up so much of the runtime, and yet they fail to elicit a single relatable emotion. The rest of the supporting cast is bad, but these two are truly atrocious.
I am going to be honest; I am unaware of the socio-political atmosphere of current-day Sweden. Based on global indices, the country is doing great in terms of innovation, peace, press freedom, and democracy. But we know what goes on with these surveys and how easily they can be skewed to paint a fake image of a country. You have to look a little deeper, parse through news bites, to see if a country is racist, bigoted, discriminatory, and buckling under the weight of criminal activity. And based on my cursory research, Sweden does have issues and then some. So, I’ll assume that the initial idea behind making An Honest Life was to comment on the problems that are plaguing the country. However, much like every movie and show that’s being told from the perspective of ignorant upper-class people, it devolved into a propaganda piece that blamed the poor and empathized with the plight of the rich. This is not an isolated event, though. As mentioned before, the “eat the rich” trend did get to the root of everything that’s wrong with society: capitalism. So, of course, the one percent that gets to decide how we should live didn’t like it, and are now funding nonsense like this. All I can say is, please, don’t fall for these narratives. Watch movies and read books that actually tackle the topic of economic divide with nuance; avoid An Honest Life like the plague.
