The Slingshot

It doesn't take long to realise that Jesper Salén's 12-year-old Roland is going to have a hard time in '20s Stockholm: daddy's a rampant socialist with a dodgy back; mum's an expatriate Russian (and Jewish); his schoolmaster is stern and handy with the cane. With suffering duly dispatched, it's time for the dash of eccentricity - to the lad's rescue comes a handy box of prophylactics, banned by the authorities but actively distributed by the welfare-conscious Red underground. A condom catapult earns Roland social acceptability - but also, eventually, a place in reform school. Given assured performances and a convincing, unshowy production job, these events proceed convincingly enough. It's just that the director plods through it all with the flattening style of a TV movie.