Film

The Liverpool Goalie

Name: The Liverpool Goalie
Genre: Comedy, Family
Released: 2010
Cast: Ask von der Hagen, Susanne Boucher, Andrine Sæther, Mattis Asker, Jostein Brox

Comedy
Light-hearted

A Norwegian comedy about a bullied 13-year-old goalie whose salvation becomes a rare football card of Liverpool's goalkeeper. Sweetly awkward and unglamorous, it captures the specific humiliation of being terrible at the one thing your peers care about. For anyone who remembers being the last picked, or who enjoys stories where kids are allowed to be genuinely uncool.

TMDb rating

3.2

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The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

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Moonrise Kingdom2012

Wes Anderson's film about two misfitted kids falling in love at summer camp. Visually gorgeous, funny without mocking the children, and genuinely interested in how loneliness feels at that age.

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The Secret of Roan Inish1994

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Ping Pong2002

Both find profundity in being mediocre at sport, and both understand that mastery—or the pursuit of it—is really about identity and belonging.

A Japanese film about two working-class teenage boys and their obsession with table tennis. Visual storytelling that's almost balletic, treating a minor sport with genuine artistry and emotional seriousness.

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Come and See1985

Both are uninterested in romanticising youth or treating it as a playground for adults' nostalgia. Both see children as complex people dealing with difficult realities, just on vastly different scales.

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