Swedish Auto (2006)

Carter (Lukas Haas) is a quiet mechanic working with two other guys. Leroy (Lee Weaver) keeps trying to push him to do something while Bobby (Chris Williams) just pushes him around. He starts to spy on violinist Ann (Brianne Davis) but he finds that the waitress Darla (January Jones) is spying on him in turn. Darla is afraid of her mom's abusive boyfriend living with them while she can't leave her sick mom behind.This one takes awhile to get going. Lukas Haas is playing the quiet shy guy yet again. He is great in these types of roles. January Jones is giving off a little bit of damaged mystery. I think her role is better for a mousy youngster to play. She's trying to portray shy but she can't escape her model looks. She does her best but I never got a solid feel for their chemistry. It's a little awkward. This small indie is the debut of writer/director Derek Sieg. It has a quiet dreary moody style. It's slow and maybe a little too slow. It shows some potential from this new filmmaker. There is some better drama later in the second half but it doesn't push as hard as it could have. Tim De Zarn plays the mom's boyfriend. He should have had more time to menace Darla and her mom. It's a little too quiet and never truly takes off.

Filmed in Virginia, the title derives from a couple of things. The main character is a mechanic in a shop called 'Swedish Auto Repair', and during the film the mechanic restores a 1967 Volvo, a Swedish car. Judging by the small budget, no box office information, and very few reviews I would guess not many saw this movie. I found it on Netflix streaming movies and it is a delightful, different little movie.Lukas Haas was a funny-looking kid and that helped him get roles that shot him to fame before he was 10 years old. Now that he has grown into a funny-looking man with large facial features it probably is hard to get 'leading man' roles, but this one suits him just fine. He makes the movie worth seeing.Here he is just known as Carter , probably close to his real age, almost 30. He lost his parents to an accident when he was quite young and has been on his own for a while. He lives in a very spartan apartment that looks like a room in a warehouse, but appropriately appointed for a single guy. He works at Swedish Auto and seems to be the best mechanic there. The owner's adult son also works there but when he isn't having trouble with a task he has an excuse to be away from the job. His dad has to put up with it. Carter overheard some nice violin music through an open window, played by a beautiful young blond lady, early 20s, and he fell in love with her from a distance, but in essence stalked her, 'happening' to be where he knew she would pass, watching her play at night from a roof. You could imagine his fantasy of some day the two of them meeting, falling in love, and living happily ever after.In the meantime the three mechanics often took a lunch break at the local hamburger shop, and the nice girl waiting on them usually was January Jones as Darla . She had her own issues, namely a very sick mother and her mother's mean, abusive boyfriend, so she never was in a rush to get home in the evening. It became clear quickly that she had her eyes on Carter, and she ended up stalking him! Not in a dangerous way, but admiration stalking. So the movie plays out with all of them dealing with their issues as best they could. The situations and dialog are interesting, a good study in human nature and dealing with issues and surprises. SPOILERS: Carter and Darla do in fact get together, she actually is more in love with him than he is with her. In fact, when the pretty musician brings the car to the shop for work Carter actually meets her and is smitten all over. When he calmly relates this to Darla he is surprised she doesn't react. She explains, "You love her like an astronomer loves the moon. You can't really love someone without being with them face-to-face. I love you and you love me." She was sure. After the garage owner dies when a jack lets a car fall on him, the son gets the garage, he tells Carter he has to sell the Volvo he rebuilt, even though the old man had given it to Carter. All the situations are resolved, at least temporarily, when Carter takes the Volvo, then takes Darla and her mother away from the boyfriend and head out of town, ostensibly to start a new life. As they leave we see a flash of an explosion, the mean boyfriend had turned on the unlit kitchen stove burners to kill everyone but only he died when a spark ignited the gas.

'Swedish Auto' opens with an excruciatingly slow camera pan across the yard of a Charlottesville auto-repair shop until the screen is filled with the image of a young man sitting in the rusting hulk of a vintage Volvo. This is Carter - a sensitive, greasy-haired loner who needs no further introduction because IMDb cognoscenti will have met his socially inept outsider cousins in numerous other Indie films. Carter's life follows a regular routine - he rises early in his humble abode beside the railroad tracks before heading off to his auto mechanic job. At lunch-break Carter frequents a diner where he gazes ardently at pertly demure waitress Darla, whom he lacks the courage to approach. Carter's eccentricities come into full bloom at dusk - after shutting up the workshop, he habitually stalks a beautiful young violinist from UVA's music school back to her apartment, and observes the girl's practice sessions until she retires for the night. Eventually Carter gets around to stalking Darla back to her own home, where his voyeuristic skills reveal she is being terrorized by her junkie mother's abusive boyfriend. In due course events conspire to break the ice for the shy twosome, and they subsequently embark on a lukewarm romance.Writer/director Derek Sieg struggles to keep his clichéd clunker on the road as Carter begins restoring the vintage Volvo to a gleaming ride fit for his oddball prince and waitress princess. Unfortunately, tedium and implausibility result in total engine seizure long before the film's road-trip conclusion with multiple loose ends fluttering in the slipstream. One suspects that flashing blue lights will shortly appear in 'Swedish Auto's' rear-view mirror, but happily that story is for another day.

I guess some people find these slow art flicks exciting. The sad downtrodden guy who can't seem to connect with anyone finally breaks out and finds out how to love. This film tries to do that, and fails miserably. First off I will say that the acting and cinematography are great, I just wish the story held up to the talent that was on the screen. When I heard that this was a new writer/director it didn't surprise me. The story lacks any immediacy until halfway through, and with this forward momentum virtually non-existent we are left watching Lukas Haas change tires and dig through car parts. At the end of the film (had I been able to stay awake), I am sure I could have tuned up my own Volvo.