“Clementine Orange”
(Sweden)
Screened at the 62nd Chicago International Film Festival (1/5)
North American Premiere, New Directors Competition
Letterboxd (1/5), Imdb.com (1/10), TMDB.com (1/10), Imdb.com critics review
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When a film doesn’t live up to its supposed intentions, prospective viewers should be skeptical about virtually all of the characterizations attributed to it. And that’s clearly the case where this debut feature from writer-director Lisa Forslund is concerned. The reason? What’s billed as a romantic drama is so far off the mark that it’s difficult to fathom how such a label could have been applied. In actuality, “Clementine Orange” is more of a comedy – and an utterly preposterous one at that, a film that’s likely destined for my 10 Worst list of 2026. When Angelica (Gizem Erdogan) begins regularly corresponding with John (Erik Enge), an inmate at one Sweden’s correctional facilities, she falls hard for the dear, sweet, misunderstood man who sends her tender love letters, whispers sweet nothings in her ear during provocative phone calls and shares photos of his strapping, handsome self. So she’s naturally over the moon when he’s granted a 24-hour parole to visit her. There’s just one hitch: rather than meeting the dreamy hunk she’s expecting, she’s confronted with (and confounded by) a sheepish, visually disappointing nerd who looks like he’s barely old enough to mow her lawn, an impersonator who has clearly been misrepresenting himself all along. Angelica is naturally deflated by the revelation, but, rather than wisely turning tails and fleeing, she inexplicably takes him under her wing – albeit reluctantly initially – and proceeds to spend the day with him, gradually warming up to his charms (if one could even call them that). From my perspective, however, I didn’t buy any of this for a minute. To begin with, I have considerable difficulty believing that someone so supposedly sharp and sophisticated as Angelica would be so lacking in street smarts that she would naively involve herself in a scenario like this in the first place, let alone fall for it and then continue to go along with it once the truth is revealed (maybe I gave her too much credit for possessing simple common sense). Secondly, the film is full of clichés, underdeveloped and underexplained sequences, trite dialogue and cinematography, implausible situations, and a score that sounds like it was plucked from a 1970s made-for-TV movie. Had these attributes been handled with a more tongue in cheek approach, they could have made for a sidesplitting comedy instead of such a laughable one, a truly inventive missed opportunity. In any event, perhaps the only saving grace here is this offering’s mercifully short 1:10:00 runtime (but, from my perspective, even that’s a lot more to devote than I would recommend). Romance is a subject that can make for great cinema – either dramatically or comically – when handled skillfully, but “Clementine Orange” is a clinic about how not to do so, regardless of which approach is employed.