Not since I was a child have I thought of the name Pippi Longstocking. I don't remember the books, nor did I ever know the name of the author, but as a writer myself I was interested in seeing this movie. I found it very engrossing and educational, both about Astrid Ericsson Lindgren and about Swedish culture in the early twentieth century. (I was so impressed with the scene in which Astrid's father had a completely civil conversation with the man who had
impregnated his adolescent daughter.) Though I know nothing about Astrid besides her being the author of Pippi Longstocking, I thought Alba August did an excellent job of playing her. As a veritable child with a baby she couldn't keep, or at least thought she couldn't, she portrayed understandable ambivalence and indecisiveness. She also played her seeming cluelessness about being a mother very well. I also came away with a strong sense of why she became a writer of children's books. It was a worthwhile way of spending a couple of hours.
Review of Becoming Astrid
