MAGNUS

“It all depends what you want from life. If you’re going to steal, rob a bank. If you’re going to rape somebody, rape a queen,” runs the advice Magnus receives from his ruthlessly hedonistic father. Hopelessness is part of the boy’s life from an early age. His parents split up, and neither of them can offer him anything like a decent home or genuine love or warmth. Afflicted by a potentially fatal lung disease, Magnus believes he won’t make it past 16 and spends his life making bets with himself: “If I make it out of the schoolyard in two minutes, then I won’t die today.” Ten years later, his lungs are cured, but he keeps on challenging fate.
Based on true events, the debut film of Estonian director Kadri Kõusaar depicts young Magnus’s search for stability in an instable society. After his despair at the futility of life drives him to a botched suicide attempt, Magnus moves in with his father. The older man wants to give his son some sense of the joy of living, but has little to offer apart from his own philosophy of self-indulgence. He gives his son drugs and takes him to a brothel. This well-meant but ignorant “help” is no use to the sensitive Magnus, the shallowness all around him just intensifies his yearning for death. The only sliver of hope comes from his friendship with a woman he was in hospital with. When Magnus goes on his first holiday with his father, the youth takes a decision – and the plot takes an unexpected turn.