Patrik Age 1.5

Searching for a streaming movie the other night this movie flitted through the suggestion box for my wife. A Swedish movie about a gay couple that seeks to adopt a baby it had received good reviews, and I consented as I often do when she has charge of the netflix, " Sure, whatever you want." To be honest it is well known that outside of Netflix between sports and politics I usually control the remote so this is certainly the least I can do.

The movie is a Swedish film which is much as I described. We have two men, married in Sweden who wish to adopt. We have Goran, a young physician who is gentle and tries to see the good in everything, and we have Swen a man a bit older, a man previously married to a woman with a teenage daughter. At the adoption agency they are told international adoptions will not work as most countries will not allow their children to live be placed with a gay couple. Wishing to adopt a Swedish child, or any child, although funnily they resolve not a child from Denmark, they depart with high hopes.

Their home is ready, the nursery is prepared, with baby monitors and all when a call on a Friday afternoon comes stating that a child will be brought to them that afternoon, an emergency placement, and that they can meet the following week to move forward with the formal paperwork. Coincidentally a sullen teenager appears on the doorstep soon after and after some confusion as to who he is and why he is their it is soon discovered that the Patrick Aged 1.5 they are expecting is actually Patrik, a troublesome orphan age 15. To make matters worse Patrik on finding his potential guardians are gay starts spitting out homophobic rants.

From there one can pretty much assume the plot of the movie and what transpires. It is actually quite well done. If the characters were a black couple and a white racist teenager it would be interesting and with this diversity of the teenager and the gay parents it works well as well. The movie works. Some of the male kissing is a little squirmy for me but that is my issue not the movie's.

In the end the movie shows that family is about connection and caring. The rest is all negotiable. My wife loved the movie and I must admit I looked over the top of my book quite a bit as well.