My Life as a Dog

It's the late 1950s. Preteen Ingemar can't help but compare how good his life is to minor celebrities that have met unfortunate fates. It's all relative as he and his older brother Erik have somewhat of an antagonistic relationship. Their antics are a bit too much for their mother to handle, she who has to raise the pair on her own as their father is constantly away working on a cargo ship halfway around the world. Ingemar doesn't want to cause her any grief due to her health issues and she arguably being his favorite person in the world. But the combination of these issues makes her send the boys away for the summer, Erik to his grandparents, and Ingemar to his maternal Uncle Gunnar and his wife Ulla who live in a small town in Smaland just outside of Kalmar. There, Ingemar meets the bunch of eccentrics that inhabit the town and who start to shape his young life as he moves into early puberty. He will need their support more than ever as he begins to understand what is actually happening in his world, not only with his mother, but also his pet dog Sickar, who was placed in a kennel for however long he would be away. That support is somewhat tenuous as who is arguably his best friend in town, tomboyish Saga, a girl who masquerades as a boy so that she can play on the boys' soccer team, is going through her own changes, namely literally blossoming into a young woman with young womanly feelings.