Tomas Ledin is not directly hip to today's music scene, but he probably has both self-insight and a twinkle in his eye, as he has agreed to lend his songs to a completely impossible thumping musical film. And someone (the director of Sillén?) Has had the good taste to understand his material. Nothing is cool, but cozy, warm and actually very fun.
Part of my heart revolves around the financial puppy Isabella (Malin Åkerman) who goes home to the Glimmerby mill (I'm not kidding, it's so called) to already run into her old bestie at the train station who quickly announces that she will marry Isabella's early love. It is no better that her father has just been notified of the aluminum factory whose closure Isabella realizes that she is owed after a complicated financial deal she danced to at work in Stockholm.
It is a classic romantic comedy cocktail that includes countdowns for a wedding, misguided feelings, a seven-half mass of qualms and even a best gay friend. Everything peppered with Tomas Ledin's songs. Everyone can sing and everyone does it with the heart's desire. There is like a suppressed giggle throughout the movie, which makes me stand out even the eerie song Sensuella Isabella.
Unfortunately, it doesn't start out as fun, the introduction is really so bad that I embarrassed myself and want to escape. The embarrassment replaces each other: Regin is non-existent and the poor young actors who are to portray Isabella & co as teenagers are left to their fate with an equally handsome and rigid dialogue. It is unbearable.
Fortunately, as a critic , you have to sit back, and it really pays off this time. Soon I forgot the awful introduction and sit with a silly smile from ear to ear. Whole stuff, that the Swedish small town they are in is a hybrid of Gnesta, Smögen, Stockholm archipelago, Botkyrka and Visby, and that it is populated by a considerable amount of pesky 25- to 30-year-olds, I note most with a raised eyebrow .
There are some small genitals in Part of my heart. There are fun details but above all meticulously carved figures like Shima Niavarani with his passive aggressiveness, Jonas Karlsson's cautious factory manager and last but not least: Christian Hillborg's relentless hunk. He is a cliché that comes to shame when you expect him to be mean and calculating, but turns out to be something completely different.
Hollywood celebrity Malin Åkerman, who is starring in a Swedish film for the first time, clearly has comic talents, but is unfortunately rather uninteresting here. It's like she's too cool and slides on top, there's something missing in her register. I suspect she may have thought the whole movie was a little embarrassing. It is. But with so much warmth and fun twists and turns that it wins a decent amount of my heart.