Kungen Av Atlantis is a very clever film, based on a true story it gives a very moving insight into the sometimes-claustrophobic world of psychiatric illness. This sense of claustrophobia is heightened by good camera work and sound. There are two very different stories: the first is the most adept portrayal I have seen of a family coping with schizophrenia. There is pathos and bathos. You laugh and yes, you cry, especially in the final scene between father and son. Yet you are relieved and happy at the film's ending. There are many amusing and some laugh out loud moments but you do not laugh at them, you laugh with them. The intensity of the relationship, the need to protect and appear normal is portrayed so well - Samuel has a brittle and fragile air - the weight of the world is upon his shoulders. His interaction with his father Magnus is intense and his isolation is palpable.
The secondary story, unfolds when a spark of love and fun enters his life in the form of the beautifully eccentric Cleo. Her relationship with her mother is gradually revealed as her rapport with Samuel develops into more than attraction. Equally intense, her domineering and controlling mother Monica has her trapped in a relationship from which she unable to break free. Both equally fragile and co-dependent. It raises questions - How do we define mental illness? because Monica at first meeting does not seem ill. Who is in the worst situation, Samuel or Cleo? But actually, they are not comparable - both are a living nightmare of sorts.
Although the focus is on the 4 main characters, this is an ensemble piece. The cast are very convincing at portraying the discomfort when confronted with behaviour outside of the norm: the payment for food at the supermarket is sublime, the waitress asking about Marcus's sobriety has you squirming, the meltdown in the supermarket, shocking. But that is perhaps the purpose of this film to make you think, to challenge your response to mental illness.
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