MOVIE REVIEW : ‘The Slingshot’ Offers a Warm Look at Facing Life : Anecdotes and humor punctuate the bittersweet story revealing the importance of a strong family life.

“The Slingshot,” a bittersweet but warm account of growing up in Sweden in the ‘20s, takes its title from the devices fashioned by its ingenious 10-year-old hero Roland Schutt (Jesper Salen) from condoms his mother sells to her friends. Roland’s enterprise is doubly significant: As the film is based on an autobiographical novel, it foreshadows Roland’s adult career as an inventor (the real Schutt is now in his 80s), and it reveals that Sweden was once far from the progressive nation it is today. No wonder Roland’s mother, Zipa (Basia Frydman), is mightily upset with him: Between 1910 and 1937 the dissemination of birth control information was illegal in Sweden.

Zipa’s family-planning advocacy, however, is but part of her larger commitment to socialism. She’s a diminutive, fiery woman, a Russian Jew, whereas her husband, Fritiof (Stellan Skarsgard), is a tall, strapping fellow, expansive, a bit pompous but an even more fervent socialist than his wife. He runs a Stockholm tobacco shop, and his family--which includes an older son Bertil (Niclas Olund), an aspiring boxer--lives behind it in small but well-appointed quarters. Although there’s not much money left over to buy the things boys crave, like a bicycle, the Schutts, for all the radical pronouncements made in their parlor, are definitely members of the middle class, albeit in the lower rungs.

“A revolutionary never closes his eyes,” preaches Fritiof to Roland, who is in the process of establishing his own sense of identity amid considerable conflict and adversity. That he is an uncircumsized, baptized Christian--as presumably is his father--does not prevent him from being subjected to a chronic, crude and sometimes physically brutal anti-Semitism (whose worse practitioners are in fact his repellent teacher and principal; these two old men are virtual Nazis). Roland is not really interested in his father’s politics, but he does develop the courage to look his adversaries straight in the eye.

The key significance of Roland’s story, told by writer-director Ake Sandgren in leisurely, anecdotal fashion with both humor and poignancy amid impeccable period settings, is that it reveals the bedrock importance of strong family life. That Roland learns, quite literally, to roll with the punches, is because he’s been blessed with loving parents. That Fritiof is clearly not very ambitious and that he’s full of hot air doesn’t much matter when you think of the love he’s capable of expressing for his sons and the large amount of time he spends with them. Sandgren is a fine director of actors, his way with young Salen is a wonder, but it’s Skarsgard’s Fritiof that fills the screen with a rounded portrait of a voluble, grandiose dreamer who also happens to be a very good father.

* MPAA rating: R, for some language . Times guidelines: Many situations too intense for small children but suitable for adolescents .

‘The Slingshot’

Jesper Salen: Roland Schutt

Stellan Skarsgard: Fritiof Schutt

Basia Frydman: Zipa Schutt

Niclas Olund: Bertil Schutt

A Sony Pictures Classics release of a co-production of AB Svensk Filmindustri, Svt Kanal 1 Drama, Nordisk Film A/S, and Svenska Film Institute. Director Ake Sandgren. Producer Waldemar Bergendahl. Screenplay by Sandgren from a novel by Roland Schutt. Cinematographer Goran Nilsson. Editor Grete Moldrup. Costumes Inger Pehrsson. Music Bjorn Isfalt. Art director Lasse Westfelt. In Swedish with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 42 minutes.

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