SUNDANCE 2021 PREMIERE – I have just fallen madly in love with a 66 year old Swedish man that I hadn’t even heard of 24 hours ago. Without any hesitation in my mind, one of the most broken, and beautiful human hearts I’ve ever seen laid out on screen–Björn Andrésen is an international treasure, for none of the reasons one might assume when they hear the basis of the documentary, The Most Beautiful Boy in the World. 

In 1971, in press for his new film Death in Venice, Italian director Lucino Visconti declared nascent actor and soon to be superstar Björn Andrésen to be “The Most Beautiful Boy in the World.” Andrésen was 15, and fresh off of playing “Tadzio,” the main character and mysterious angel of death brought to life from Death in Venice. He had no parents, only a Granny who was only too happy to push him out into the world of fame. He had no solid ground to stand on – simply the knowledge that he was, apparently, The Most Beautiful Boy in the World. Something to aspire to. Something to idolize. Something that has haunted him every day since.

Swedish filmmakers Kristina Lindström and Kristian Petri spent five years following Andrésen–documenting what can only be defined as a complicated life. We meet Andrésen in his tenement home–walls decaying, mattress falling apart–soon after he discovers he’s set to be evicted, due to leaving his gas burner on when he’d left the home. The gas burner was bad enough, but upon seeing the state of his home, his landlord gives him a month to clean up and get his act together–a task his loving, and lovely, girlfriend, Jessica, sets to with fervor. Andrésen is paralyzed by his fear, his anguish, and his heartbreak. This heartbreak butts heads beautifully with his immense desire to make right the wrongs that were done–both to him and by his hand.

The documentary takes us–fifty years after Visconti’s life-changing declaration–along the steps walked by Andrésen in the years immediately following his massive, boggling success. Japan, Paris, and a final stop on the beach in Venice where he filmed his pivotal role. The film covers his life–from the overwhelming success to the tragic losses, and allowing him a chance to truly process and grieve. Andrésen is surrounded by love each step of the way – but ultimately his journey to peace, and to hope, is with himself alone. Choices made for him brought him here – from abusive grooming behavior by those he was meant to trust, to substance abuse brought on by negligent and overpowering management – but his choices are the only ones that can save him now.

The Most Beautiful Boy in the World is like Andrésen–beautiful and almost too stunning to perceive with both eyes at once. Heartbreaking, achingly sad, broken, and intimately and gorgeously flawed. A truly stunning portrait of a man shattered, rebuilt, and shattered time and time again.  Björn is an unwitting hero of intelligence, emotional endurance, will, fortitude, and at his deepest core – beauty. Not the pretty-as-a-picture, polished beauty we all surround ourselves with, but deep, soul level, broken beauty. Björn is a spiritual character, a tragic figure that is far too of this world and simultaneously otherworldly, captured stunningly by the incredible documentary–The Most Beautiful Boy in the World.

The Most Beautiful Boy in the World will be released by Juno Films in September 2021 and is currently playing at the Sundance Film Festival.

10 out of 10