Spring Uje spring

has been in the starting blocks since the Gothenburg Film Festival almost a year ago.

The premiere was hilarious, which is often the case when a festive festival audience gets small only on the collective feeling of being present when the locally popular festival kicks off.

But the ovations after the film, when director Henrik Schyffert and screenwriter Uje Brandelius entered the stage, were still on a level of their own.

In short, it is about the musician Uje Brandelius' struggle with everyday life after he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

Which, of course, made the video an overnight sensation.

So the film, not the disease, which is chronic and progressive.

Early in the film

comes the Doctor Cosmos hit On pretend and for real - a fitting alternative title for this semi-documentary visit to the Stockholm (suburb) Bredäng where Uje and his family play themselves, on pretend and for real.

And they do it damn well.

As if the camera is an extra family member.



It is in many ways a perfect little film, in tone, in the mix of floral and bitter.

With drastic throws between sadness and humor.

One might call it a squadron, an improbable creation;

a feel good about Parkinson's, with elements of musical.

It sounds impossible, but if all the pieces sit like a sledgehammer, like here, the whole thing will be magnificent.

Okay, it's not an epoch-making masterpiece but still… yes, a great drama in a small tight suit.

Uje's and Doctor

Kosmo's texts further contribute to ingeniously formulated social criticism, are pleasantly lumpy, make Uje appear as the unfortunately deceased rock poet Olle Ljungström's more politically inclined little brother.



Schyffert and Brandelius work with recognition, from small parents' life puzzles to media anxiety and the operation of Stockholm's housing is as fun as it is accurate.

But it is also about Uje's state of shock after the illness, about how grief and powerlessness turn the charm troll Uje into an orch.

Ogin, wicked, inaccessible.

This is the

Renaissance man Henrik Schyffert's directorial debut in a feature film context.

The ironic priest of the ironic generation thus delivers a piece of drama that is surprisingly sensitive;

as laconic entertaining as it is undressed tangible.

Not sentimental, but close.


But then he has had a talented script to work with, written by Uje Brandelius himself, based on his acclaimed performance with the same title.

After the hallelujah atmosphere there on the stage there in Gothenburg in January this year, the corona silence settled over the country's cinemas and Spring Uje Spring's regular premiere was postponed to the future, but now the distributor Triart has decided to put the film on the repertoire.

Which, given the current eight-person limit, is a little surprising, but it's just thank you and welcome.


This is a splashy film, with equal parts heart and brain, which at least for a moment makes one forget December depression and covid chaos.