Plot

In the late '50s, young Ingemar learns a lot about life and himself when he is sent away from his sick mother to live with his aunt and uncle in a town full of eccentrics.

Small town Sweden, in the 1950s. This slice-of-life story is also a coming-of-age tale narrated by a young boy with an almost unconscious sense of irony. His single mother is terminally ill, his older brother isn't the warmest person in his life, and twice he is sent to relatives in a supportive, loving village with interesting characters and adventures.

It's the late 1950s. Preteen Ingemar can't help but compare how good his life is to minor celebrities that have met unfortunate fates. It's all relative as he and his older brother Erik have somewhat of an antagonistic relationship. Their antics are a bit too much for their mother to handle, she who has to raise the pair on her own as their father is constantly away working on a cargo ship halfway around the world. Ingemar doesn't want to cause her any grief due to her health issues and she arguably being his favorite person in the world. But the combination of these issues makes her send the boys away for the summer, Erik to his grandparents, and Ingemar to his maternal Uncle Gunnar and his wife Ulla who live in a small town in Småland just outside of Kalmar. There, Ingemar meets the bunch of eccentrics that inhabit the town and who start to shape his young life as he moves into early puberty. He will need their support more than ever as he begins to understand what is actually happening in his world, not only with his mother, but also his pet dog Sickar, who was placed in a kennel for however long he would be away. That support is somewhat tenuous as who is arguably his best friend in town, tomboyish Saga, a girl who masquerades as a boy so that she can play on the boys' soccer team, is going through her own changes, namely literally blossoming into a young woman with young womanly feelings.—Huggo

Ingemar lives with his brother and his terminally ill mother. He may have a rough time, but not as bad as Laika - the russian dog sent into space... He gets sent away to stay with relations for the summer. While there, he meets various strange characters, giving him experiences that will affect him for the rest of his life.—Colin Tinto <cst@imdb.com>

The story sets in the late 1950s. Ingemar (Anton Glanzelius), is a boy who lives with his older brother and his ill mother. He loves dogs and is particularly worried about Laika, the female Russian dog sent to the space, which dies several days later because the food run out. The boy has a normal life with an only friend and his beloved female dog, but he simply doesn't get along well with his brother, who spends time playing practical jokes and make fun of poor Ingemar. Their mother's tired of putting up with the children's pranks, whom spend all day fighting and making her mother loses her temper. One day, Ingemar and his brother are separated for the sake of their ill mother. Ingemar is sent with his uncle, who lives in a small town with his wife. There, Ingemar will bump into curious people, like an old man who has a particular obsession with lingerie ads, glass workers in a workshop or a pretty girl, who in order to play in a soccer team, she pretends to be a boy disguising herself.—Alejandro Frias

Mischievous 12-year-old Ingemar (Anton Glanzelius) gets into all sorts of trouble, which drives his mother (Anki Lidén) crazy; Ingemar does not know that his mother is in fact terminally ill. When he and his older brother become too much for her, they are split up and sent to live with relatives. Ingemar ends up with his maternal uncle Gunnar (von Brömssen) and his wife Ulla (Kicki Rundgren) in a small rural town in Småland. Gunnar and Ingemar bond over Povel Ramel's recording of "Far, jag kan inte få upp min kokosnöt" (a free rendition of the original song).

In the town he encounters a variety of characters. Saga (Kinnaman), an assertive tomboy his own age, likes him, and shows it by beating him up in a boxing match. Among the more eccentric residents is Fransson (Magnus Rask), a man who continually fixes the roof of his house, and Mr. Arvidsson (Didrik Gustavsson), an old man living downstairs who gets Ingemar to read to him from a lingerie catalog.

Later, Ingemar is reunited with his family, but his mother soon takes a turn for the worse and is hospitalized. He and his brother go to stay with their uncle Sandberg (Leif Ericson) in the city, but his wife thinks the boy is crazy. After his mother passes away, he is sent back to Småland.

Mr. Arvidsson has died in the interim; Gunnar and Ulla now share the house with a large Greek family. Gunnar welcomes him and consoles him as best he can, but the house is so crowded, he has Ingemar live with Mrs. Arvidsson in another house. Meanwhile, Ingemar becomes the object of contention between Saga and another girl. When they start fighting over him, he grabs onto Saga's leg and starts barking like a dog. She becomes upset by his strange behavior and gets him into the boxing ring. During the bout, out of spite, she tells him that his beloved dog (which he had thought was in a kennel) was actually euthanized. This, along with his mother's death, is too much for him and he locks himself inside Gunnar's one-room "summer house" in the backyard. The time spent here forces Ingemar to reflect on the death of his mother, the loss of his dog and a changing world. Ingemar uses the experiences of others and of his own personal loss to reconcile a life which is sometimes tough.

The movie ends with the radio broadcast of a famous heavyweight championship boxing match, between Swede Ingemar Johansson and American Floyd Patterson. When Johansson wins, the whole town erupts with joy, but the now-reconciled Ingemar and Saga are fast asleep together on a couch.

Throughout the film, Ingemar tells himself over and over that it could have been worse, reciting several examples, such as a man who took a shortcut onto the field during a track meet and was killed by a javelin and the story of the dog Laika several times, the first creature sent into orbit by the Russians (without any way to get her back down).