We Are The Best!, film review: Cheeky and confrontational coming-of-age comedy

(15) Lukas Moodysson, 102 mins Starring: Mira Barkhammer, Mira Grosin, Liv LeMoyne

For years, audiences and critics have been calling on Lukas Moodysson, the former wunderkind of Swedish cinema, to make a film in the vein of his early features Fucking Amal (released here as Show Me Love) and Together.

Finally, in adapting a graphic novel written by his wife, Coco, Moodysson has obliged. Set in 1982, this is a coming-of-age comedy about three sports-hating 13-year-old girls who form a punk band. Their music, like their personalities, is wonderfully cheeky and confrontational.

The film, largely shot Dogme-style with handheld camera and natural lighting, is absolutely not one of those nostalgia-seeped invocations of lost childhood.

What makes it so special is its mix of barbed humour, tenderness and its Adrian Mole-like insights into what teenage years are really like.