It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Even though there are more and more films about transgenders, "Something Must Break" (the title refers to a song by Joy Division) deploys arguments and a beauty that go beyond what we are used to see. Saga Becker performs brilliantly in this first role (no wonder why the director took two years to find her actress) that she plays with tenderness and melancholy. Despite a cold scenery and a gloomy Stockholm, the warmth of the characters and the intimacy that they build together has something charming and even magical. The camera focus on the bubble in which the characters live and it follows their evolution –natural but sometimes abrupt – on their quest to get what they desire. The purity from the tenderness scenes is literally mesmerising and "Something Must Break" brilliantly avoids the pitfalls inherent to LGTB films. Far from the colours and extravagance of Araki's movies, this movie is quite rough but still offers some crazy scenes, an insanity that stem from Andreas and Ellie's passion. Because we never know if this passion is made of love or not, but the director wants to make the viewer understand that the goal is not to know or to see it but to feel it. Full review on our blog : https://losindiscretos.org/English/something- must-break-2014-ester-martin-bergsmark

Because of that there's a certain kind of sadness surrounding the personal struggle fought by trans people. Sebastian / Ellie is such a person who identifies her/himself not as gay or straight, not as male or female, not as transsexual, but as something that isn't called by name in the movie, something "queer" you might say. http://hallokino.pl/cos-musi-sie-stac-2014/ While his/her search for an own identity manifests itself, Something Must Break manages to bring up some (other) big issues of our time (in the Western World): solitude, unemployment, depression, the search for meaning in this life, etc. A beautiful yet heavy-hearted movie with a nice soundtrack by Tami Tamaki and Olof Dreijer (The Knife). Recommended!

A Swedish Generation Y movie about transgenderism and loneliness, also known as Something Must Break. Saga Becker is phenomenal in this small gem that's been permeated with melancholy. At the same time the film feels incredibly liberating because it talks about gender and the freedom to be who you are without restrictive cisgenderism and heteronormativity. Maybe that's just it: this liberty, which is not at all won at this moment in history, is still something bleak and isolated. Because of that there's a certain kind of sadness surrounding the personal struggle fought by trans people. Sebastian / Ellie is such a person who identifies her/himself not as gay or straight, not as male or female, not as transsexual, but as something that isn't called by name in the movie, something "queer" you might say. While his/her search for an own identity manifests itself, Something Must Break manages to bring up some (other) big issues of our time (in the Western World): solitude, unemployment, depression, the search for meaning in this life, etc. A beautiful yet heavy-hearted movie with a nice soundtrack by Tami Tamaki and Olof Dreijer (The Knife). Recommended!

'Something must Break' ('Nånting måste gå sönder' in the original Swedish) is about a young cross-dresser named Sebastian (who longs to be called 'Ellie'). He lives with his commitment-phobe lesbian best friend in a grotty flat in Stockholm and works in a dead-end job shifting things in a warehouse, ignoring the efforts of at least one work colleague to establish friendship - Sebastian is rather self-indulgent. One day, experiencing some gay-bashing in a public toilet (after coming on to his attacker), he is rescued by Andreas, a personable young man with elements of the left-over punk about him. Andreas insists he isn't homosexual but is quite happy to let Sebastian's fingers anally penetrate him (something I've not seen in a non-pornographic gay film before; usually gay sex is portrayed exclusively as penetration with penis). For a while the pair enjoy the traditional romantic pursuits of shoplifting and urinating in public, but when Andreas insists Sebastian "tone down the girlie stuff" the latter realises his hopes of a happy ending with the former may be dashed.As the viewer suffers through the appallingly juddery hand-held camera-work, he realises this is a rather predictable film, from Andreas' reluctance to publicly accept Sebastian's lifestyle choice to Sebastian's attempt to embarrass Andreas by turning up uninvited to a dinner he's having with his mainstream friends (although, being Scandinavian, they immediately accept Sebastian for what he is and tell him what nice hair he's got). It's also rather gloomy and slow, with long shots of Sebastian laying on the floor carving names into bars of soap or sniffing the handkerchief on which he has some of Andreas' blood, the romantic fool. Saga Becker, as Sebastian, does his best with the role but it isn't one that inspires a lot of sympathy in the viewer. However, keep your eyes open for the rare times when Becker gives his lovely, genuine smile - it lights up the screen.