Nelly Rapp - monster agent

hangs and throws in Harry Potter's ass, but there's nothing to be ashamed of.

The myth of the chosen child who will perform great deeds was already established in the Bible and has been a staple in the fantasy genre ever since.

Here, and in Martin Widmark's literary model, it is about an eleven-year-old girl who, when she is to live for a few days with her half-shady uncle Hannibal, realizes that her now dead mother had not only been a librarian, but actually belonged to a secret academy of monster hunters.

It is not

long before Nelly finds herself in the basement of the old house, full of exciting props, where her uncle has locked up an obsessive vampire, but this is a kind world where the monsters are only captured if they make a fuss and are later released. again after a slight reprimand.

The task of the monster agents is not to kill all the werewolves, trolls and ghosts that move in the margins of our existence, but to "protect the world from monsters, and the monsters from the world".

Director Amanda Olofsson

(Young Sophie Bell) and screenwriter Sofie Forsman give us a slightly thin story that is straight and smooth as a raked walk, without dramaturgical surprises or stimulating twists.


But the lack of innovation in the narrative arc is compensated by many playful details in the fine production design.

The first

act in

particular

is peppered with ingenious gadgets and presentations of the film's odd characters.

A vampire who is vegan may be an open target but still whimsical and contemporary, especially when it is here the always entertaining David Wiberg who carries the fangs.

But most fun of all is still Nelly's dad;

a hard-believing realist who is forced to reevaluate his square view of existence.

Jens Ohlin, who was rarely seen on screen, makes his father a warm, slightly neurotic and stage-stealing man who would have liked to have been a little more involved.

Otherwise, it's

star-studded worse, and Johan Rheborg, Björn Gustafsson, Marianne Mörck and Amy Diamond in all glory, but little Matilda Gross in the lead role is a find, which ensures that Nelly appears as an update and mix of Pippi Longstocking and Lotta on Bråkmakargatan .

But remember the ugly product placement of the comic book Bamse.

It's a snapshot from the supermarket where Nelly walks with the magazine clearly open in the direction of the camera.

A disturbing moment that for a few moments makes the illusion falter.

The probability that a cautious and precocious eleven-year-old like Nelly would read Bamse is, to put it mildly, quite low.

Ajabaja.

How was it now with advertising directly aimed at children under 12 years ..?

Like many

other children's fictions, the Nelly Rapp package also houses a kindly upbringing sentence, which reads something like: We like different.


Everyone is allowed to participate, everyone is equal, and that's fine, but it still seems as if some are a little more equal than others - this version of Nelly Rapp comes in 50 shades of white.


It certainly does not make the film worse, but it is still a bit odd considering that you hammer in the sentence about inclusion so hard.