Director: Kristian A Soderstrom
Writer: Kristian A Soderstrom (Screenplay)
Starring: Stefan Sauk, Lena Nilsson, Morgan Alling, Martin Wallstrom, Sven Wollter, Helena Jansson, Amanda Ooms
Plot: A VHS collector and a woman obsessed with the 80s, both alcoholics, initiates a romance that helps them battle their personal failures.
Tagline – A movie can turn your life around
Runtime: 1 Hour 33 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: Memory Lane Thriller
Story: Videoman starts as we meet Ennio Midena (Sauk) who 20-years ago had the best video shop in Sweden, now with videos out of fashion, his collection is vast, but just not giving any money, even though he continues to add to the collection, with hopes of once again opening up a Video store, believing they will come back into fashion like vinyl to music.
When Ennio gets a call from infamous video collection Faceless, he agrees to sell her some of his collection for a large amount, which would solve some of the money problems Ennio is facing, only to learn that not many people live long after meeting Faceless, putting him on edge about his own well being and the new woman in his life Simone (Nilsson) who like him, is also obsessed with the 1980s.
Thoughts on Videoman
Characters – Ennio is a businessman, who made his money from a video store back in the 80s and 90s, now with the format dying out he want to make a comeback with his video collection being amongst the best in the world. He sees part of his collection attract a huge fee which could help clear his debts, just as he meets a new woman with the similar love of the 80s as him. He doe start to question his own reality after becoming obsessed certain parts of his collections are happening to him in real life. Simone is the assistant that is getting bogged down with work that she searches social media for attention when she isn’t drinking, her love for 80s doesn’t help he situation as most people in her life have moved on, until she meets Ennio. We do meet people in both their lives, with Simone having a tragic life of lost dreams, while Ennio meets his fellow collectors who give him the conversations about movies he enjoys the most.
Performances – Stefan Sauk and Lena Nilsson both give us wonderful leading performances, they both show the problems their characters are struggling through during the film. When we look into the supporting performances, everyone feels like they are in the world they are in.
Story – The story does follow two people with their own addictions that find love through their addictions, they must look at their own life to see what is going wrong in their life and figure out if they can fix it before it is too late. We do get to see how one person is still hung up on an aging format, much like how we are seeing streaming services take over the modern media format, the collectors will always want hard copies of their love. We do get a serious look at how alcohol has taken over bigger parts in life too. This is an interesting story and does show how paranoia can take over when addictions are getting out of control.
Comedy/Thriller – The comedy side of this film comes from seeing how Ennio is reacting to certain things that are happening in his life, the thriller side of the film does its best to keep us wondering just what could be real or not.
Settings – The film does show us how the two people operating in everyday life, we see how the collectors are not always going to be where you think they are too.
Special Effects – The effects are strong through the film, we get to see a couple of clever moments which are effective to understand Ennio mentality.
Scene of the Movie – Sleeping on TV?
That Moment That Annoyed Me – The collection talk will go over some people’s heads.
Final Thoughts – This is an interesting look at how collectors still will make room for new additions to their collection, however much money comes their way, as well as showing how addiction can work.
Overall: Thriller that shows problems with addictions.
