A boy on the cusp of adolescence, Ingemar is sent to stay in a small village because his mother is dying. He reads lingerie catalog blurbs aloud for the pleasure of an old man, boxes with a pubescent soccer teammate who's not quite ready to become a woman, and befriends the village goddess. Opening with Ingemar's musings on Laika, the space dog who starved to death, and closing with Swedish boxing champ Ingemar Johansson knocking out American heavyweight Floyd Patterson, the film is a tender story about hope and kindness that somehow manages to dodge cliche.

Havi Hoffman