Bitch Hug

A young woman named Kristin wants to leave her humdrum little rural Swedish town behind for the glamour of New York City, so she gets a local newspaper to foot the bill. But Kristen misses her flight, and starts filing forged reports from the big city while hiding out with a family of misfits in the woods in this quiet little comedy. Aside from its awful breaches of journalistic ethics (which, to my horror, were handled with remarkable blitheness) and too-quirky indie comedy trappings, Bitch Hug is a surprisingly effective portrait of a friendship in times of great duress. (PAUL CONSTANT)