Plot Summary
Together is set in one of the communes that sprang up around Stockholm in the 1970s. Loosely led by the sweet-natured Göran, who will do anything to avoid a conflict, the group spend their time arguing about left-wing politics and other questions such as whether doing the dishes is bourgeois. The commune's dynamics are significantly shaken when Göran's sister leaves her violent husband Rolf and moves in, bringing her two children Eva and Stefan.
Self-declared lesbian Anna lives in the commune with her ex-husband Lasse and their son Tet (named after the Tet offensive), who befriends Stefan. The two play games such as "torture the Pinochet victim" where, in the spirit of equality, they take turns at being Pinochet. Eva meanwhile befriends a lonely boy across the street; his family appears conventional on the surface but proves to be even more dysfunctional than the commune of which they so openly disapprove. The children are portrayed as sidelined by everyone in the film, from the new school where they are bullied to the parents who, while genuinely loving, are too busy experimenting with their own freedom to show it.
Elisabeth's husband Rolf makes a concerted effort to clean up his act, although not before getting drunk and arrested, leaving his children stranded on a roadside after a disastrous meal in a Chinese restaurant. Further relationship problems are found with Klas, who is desperately in love with Lasse, and between Göran and his selfish and immature girlfriend, who wants the benefits of an open relationship but not the responsibilities.
The film ends on a feel-good tone set to an ABBA song, showing (almost) all of the characters seeming to find the love they need.
Read more about this topic: Together (2000 film)
Famous quotes containing the words plot and/or summary:
“Those blessed structures, plot and rhyme—
why are they no help to me now
I want to make
something imagined, not recalled?”
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)
“I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable, the first moment of an universal republic would convert me into an advocate for single and uncontradicted despotism. The fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better, nor worse, for a people than another.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)