LESBIAN LONGING TURNS PLOT IN `SHOW ME LOVE'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

``Show Me Love'' shares with a dozen or so films of recent vintage the archetypal gay teen fantasy: young person comfortable with his/her sexuality, if not much else, ultimately brings around cutest classmate of the same gender. The difference here is that it's small-town Swedish girls, and their behavior is as credible as the fantasy is cliched.

Agnes (Rebecca Liljeberg) has lived in Amal, a Scandinavian Nowheresville, for about a year, and in that time has made exactly one friend, a girl in a wheelchair whom she really doesn't like. That doesn't stop her mom from planning a big sweet 16 party; Agnes is mortified when Mother insists she pass out invitations to the disinterested kids at school. Rumor has already spread that Agnes, though still a virgin, leans the lesbian way.

And it's true; the diary she keeps on her home computer is filled with pinings for Elin (Alexandra Dahlstrom), a beautiful blond 14-year-old with her own exaggerated reputation for sexual adventurousness. Neither girl has a very happy home life, although Agnes' sensitive dad tries to understand her (without really understanding anything), and Elin and her contentious sister Jessica (Erica Carlson) would maybe get along better if their overworked, single mom could give them more quality time.

Anyway, Elin and Jessica wind up at Agnes' on their way to the evening's real party, and Elin kisses Agnes on a dare. Feeling guilty - and maybe something else - Elin returns late that night, drunk and disgusted with the boys she's just messed with, to apologize. There's a spark that Elin spends most of the movie trying to convince herself meant nothing. Confused, Agnes just gets angrier.

Oddly enough, the most memorable aspect of ``Show Me Love'' is indeed the quicksilver rage both girls express. Elin is bored and jaded and just smart enough not to want to end up like her mother or older sister - and secretly terrified by any real chance to get away from Amal, or at least from its soul-deadening conventions. Agnes, naturally, sees nothing fair about her existence, and of course she's right. Then again, they may just be two petulant, self-dramatizing teen-agers, a possibility that the movie wisely keeps in perspective.

Less wise was writer-director Lukas Moodysson's decision to shoot the film on grainy, reversal film stock, with a lot of cheesy, TV-style zoom-lens antics. While this is not exactly the same filming philosophy as the Dogme '95 school that's taken hold in nearby Denmark, it nonetheless seems to be part of a perverse Scandinavian movement to make movies that look unnecessarily ugly.

Perhaps he felt that was a better way to underscore the emptiness that surrounds these two troubled, though hardly hopeless girls. Moodysson builds their small, constricted world with the same detailed efficiency (the witless guys who date the sisters and, tellingly and amusingly, like to brag about which has the smallest, thinnest cell phone) that the actresses employ to flesh out their difficult characters. All this makes ``Show Me Love'' a cut above your average gay teen romance. A more imaginative plot line would have made it really remarkable.

THE FACTS

The film: ``Show Me Love'' (not rated; language, violence, nudity, substance abuse).

The stars: Alexandra Dahlstrom, Rebecca Liljeberg, Erica Carlson, Mathias Rust.

Behind the scenes: Written and directed by Lukas Moodysson. Produced by Lars Jonsson. Distributed by Strand Releasing.

Running time: One hour, 29 minutes.

Playing: Laemmle Fine Arts, Beverly Hills; Rialto, South Pasadena.

Our rating: Three stars.

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Photo

Photo: Agnes (Rebecca Liljeberg, left) and Elin (Alexandra Dahlstrom) chafe at the mundane existence in their small town in ``Show Me Love.''