Welcome back to Movie Recapped. Today I will show you a comedy,
drama film from 2017, titled The Square. Spoilers ahead! Watch out and take care.
In Stockholm, Christian works as the curator of the prestigious X-Royal art museum, which
used to be the Royal Palace. Today, he starts his morning with an interview with journalist Anne,
who lacks the art knowledge necessary to ask the right questions and understand Christian's
answers. Meanwhile, outside the museum, a group of workers is removing a statue and
cutting off a square piece of ground that will be used for the latest exhibit with a
plaque that says "The Square is a sanctuary of trust and caring. Within its boundaries,
we all share equal rights and obligations". While these are the morals in the pieces of
art Christian approves for the museum, he doesn't exactly follow them himself and always ignores
people on the street that ask for simply a bit of change or some food. One afternoon,
Christian sees a woman running by and screaming for help. Everyone ignores her except for one man,
and while Christian wants to ignore her too, the man asks him to help him shield the girl
against the angry guy that is chasing her. Fortunately, this guy sees the men protecting the
girl and leaves, not wanting to get into a fight. The girl gets to escape safely, then Christian and
the man congratulate each other on a job well done before parting ways. However, Christian barely
takes a few steps before he realizes he's missing his wallet, his phone, and his cufflinks; it turns
out the girl needing help and the two men had been working together to rob him. He asks random people
on the streets if they'd lend him their phone so he can make an emergency call, but he's ignored.
Moments later, Christian makes it to the museum just in time for a meeting with his team. The
Square exhibition is getting ready to open soon, but first, they have to finish deciding what their
advertising strategy will be like. The marketing guys need to know what makes this exhibition
different or controversial to make it show up not only on the usual art blogs but on the general
news and social media as well. Christian wants to stick to the message and simplicity of The Square
yet the rest of the team thinks relying on likes is important, so in the end, they agree to bring
new ideas to the next brainstorming meeting. Afterward, Christian tells everyone about the
robbery, and his employee Michael teaches him how to track the position of his phone on his
computer. Christian has a busy schedule ahead, so he leaves Michael in charge of the tracking while
he receives a group of special guests to celebrate the opening of The Square exhibition. He has a
speech ready that even comes with a little trick where an employee makes a phone ring to interrupt
him, allowing Christian to make a joke and pretend to go off script with some natural heartfelt words
when actually, it's all been memorized. The Square is introduced as a safe space where anyone can
stand and ask for help, and nobody is allowed to ignore them while they're there. Ironically,
Christian uses as examples quotes from the hobos he ignores on the streets every day.
Once the presentation is over, Christian goes back to Michael, who has found out the phone
is in a building in a shady neighborhood, but he can't exactly tell which apartment. Then, the guys
come up with a plan: they'll write a threatening letter asking for Christian's belongings to be
left at the station's 7/11 if the thief doesn't want consequences, and they'll print a bunch
of copies to fill every mailbox in the building. When the letters are ready, the duo drives all the
way to the building, only to get cold feet when they get there. Neither of them wants to do it,
and they can't go together because one of them must stay behind watching the car. After a long
argument, Christian accepts to do it, although he takes off his glasses and puts on Michael's
jacket to avoid being recognized. With gloves on not to leave fingerprints behind, Christian takes
the elevator to the last floor and slowly makes his way down the stairs, leaving letters on every
mailbox on every floor. Meanwhile, Michael is scared of the people that are starting to approach
the car because they've never seen anything so fancy. Fortunately, Christian comes out
before these people get too close, and as soon as he jumps into the car, Michael drives away,
hitting something on their way out because of their hurry. Later at home, when Christian is
changing his clothes, he realizes he's had his cufflinks in his pockets all along.
The next day, Christian stops at the station's 7/11. There is still no news of his things,
but he at least buys a sandwich for a poor woman when she asks for it. It isn't until several days
later that Christian gets a call from the shop saying a package has arrived for him, and when
Christian goes to pick it up, he's shocked to find his phone and his wallet untouched. He's
so happy that he gives the money from the wallet to a beggar that he had ignored seconds ago,
then he goes to a local club to celebrate. At the club, Christian bumps into Anne,
who behaves rather awkwardly and mistakes him for another museum celebrity. Christian promises
himself he won't give in to the advances of a woman so out of touch with the arts, but later,
he ends up accepting her invitation to go to her place anyway. After having lots of fun together,
Anne gets off the bed to freshen up and offers to throw away Christian's rubber,
yet Christian won't give it to her, preferring to dispose of it himself. This triggers a really dumb
argument that ends with Anne taking the rubber from Christian's hands by force as she calls
out how narcissistic he is for thinking someone may consider stealing his seed.
The next day, Christian gets a call from the 7/11 saying another package has arrived for
him. Christian asks the clerk to open it, and inside she finds a letter where the anonymous
writer asks for an apology for having been called a thief or chaos will take
over Christian's life. There's a phone number too, but Christian hangs up before hearing it.
At the museum, the marketing guys bring the team their idea for the ad campaign. They want
to create a video that will go viral, and for that they need controversy. Since The Square deals with
humanitarian subjects and their research shows that what most gets shared on social media is
vulnerable groups, they want to make a clip of a blonde beggar child entering the square in tears
before she gets hurt, which is the total opposite of what The Square stands for in order to surprise
the audience. The team hates the idea, but at that moment, Christian arrives. He's still shaken
by the possible danger he may be in, so he barely glances at the presented idea before approving
it with no complaints, that way he can end the meeting now and send Michael to the 7/11 to pick
up the letter. At the store, Michael is shocked to find the writer behind the letter is a young boy,
who is furious because Christian's stupid trick made his parents think he's a thief,
and now he demands an explanation to be given to his family. After lots of arguing and yelling,
Michael manages to convince the boy that he isn't Christian, just an employee doing his job.
Meanwhile at the museum, Christian is approached by Anne, who tells him she's
felt they have a connection and she wants more than just one night of fun. Christian responds
she's a good catch but doesn't give her a definite answer, promising to talk later,
but from then on, he ignores all her calls. In the evening, Christian is at home analyzing the
letter from the boy when he suddenly hears some noises outside the apartment. It's his daughters,
who are angry with him for not having picked them up, although Christian swears it was his
ex-wife's turn and not his. The girls are fighting with each other too, causing Christian to yell at
them to make them stop. This makes the girls cry, so Christian tries to change his approach and goes
for an understanding, gentle comfort instead. The next day, Christian takes the girls to the
museum to show them how The Square exhibition is coming together. At the entrance, guests can
choose between two paths: trusting people or not trusting people. If they choose to trust people,
then they must leave their wallets and phones on a square painted on the floor in front of
a picture that indicates they're pretending to leave their things in the middle of the street.
In the end, they can visit The Square itself. Afterward, Christian takes the girls shopping,
and while waiting, he ignores yet another beggar. Then, he gets a call from Youtube to congratulate
him on the three hundred views the museum's channel got in just a few hours. At first,
Christian is happy, thinking the artists' talks are gaining traction, but actually the video
going viral is "Blonde Child Beggar Gets Blown Into Pieces". Not believing what he's hearing,
Christian hangs up without caring about the options for monetization. Since nobody in the
mall will help him, he asks the beggar from before to look over the bags while Christian
looks for the girls, this way if they come back first they won't find the seat empty.
At the museum, the team is reading the comments under the video, which depicts a blonde child
beggar with a kitty in her arms, crying before they get blown up inside The Square. The video
has gone viral for the wrong reasons, everyone hates it and is leaving comments
insulting the company. Not only the general public hates it, every media outlet and religious
organization are criticizing them harshly as well. Christian arrives at the office in a rush with his
daughters in tow, ready to offer a speech about art pushing boundaries and transcending taboos,
but the board members don't want to hear it. This means Christian must be ready for consequences.
Until a decision is made, though, Christian must still attend any museum-related events. In the
evening, he goes to a dinner that announces a special performance from a wild animal,
so everybody must lay low to avoid being targeted as prey. At that moment, an actor
called Oleg enters the room while pretending to be a gorilla. At first, people are amused by his
antics and the excellent acting, but soon things get tense when Oleg confronts a man and scares
him out of the room. Christian tries to finish the act right there with a round of applause,
but Oleg ignores him and gets more violent. He runs another group of people out for letting their
phones ring, then jumps on a table and begins acting inappropriately towards a woman. The rest
of the people are keeping their heads down as the rules said, and when Oleg throws the woman on the
floor to take advantage of her, it takes a few seconds until a man finally reacts and comes to
help her, inspiring the others to do the same. As chaos takes over the room, Christian leaves
the museum with his daughters and returns home only to find the letter boy waiting for him.
The kid keeps demanding an apology, and while Christian tells him a not very sincere sorry,
he refuses to talk to the parents. This causes the boy to stick to his promise of chaos and begins
knocking on all of the neighbors' doors in the middle of the night. Not wanting to get in trouble
with the neighbors, Christian pulls the boy away and accidentally makes him fall down the stairs,
leaving him there before returning to his apartment. Unfortunately, this isn't over,
because Christian can hear the boy asking for help and nobody goes to check on him. Feeling
guilty and disturbed, Christian searches for the boy's letter and realizes he had thrown it away,
so he goes out in the rain to search the building's trash bags until he finds it. Then,
he calls the number on the letter, but since he's sent directly to voicemail, he decides to record a
video instead. With the apology, Christian admits being prejudiced, he should've knocked on the
building's doors and asked questions instead of sending the letters, but he was too afraid of the
people living there. Unfortunately, this moment of self-reflection is ruined when he begins ranting
about supposed prejudice against the rich and how one person like him can't do anything even
with his money, it's all up to the system. The next day, under orders from the board,
Christian arranges a press conference where he announces he's stepping down as curator
in mutual agreement with the higher-ups for violating protocol because the video
was uploaded without his knowledge, and that was irresponsible of him. He tries to explain
neither he nor the board agrees with the morals expressed in the video, but the journalists are
still ruthless with their attacks, either implying the museum was trying to stir up edgy controversy
for the sake of clicks or accusing Christian of self-censorship and putting a limit to art.
The following day, the newspaper still continues to attack the museum for their campaign and this
time, they include a picture of the exhibition, commenting all this mess was to present a freaking
square. Afterward, Christian goes to support his daughters at their cheerleader competition. Once
they're done, though, they don't immediately return home; instead, Christian drives back
to the humble neighborhood to find the boy and apologize properly. Unfortunately, when
he begins knocking on neighbors' doors to find him, he learns the whole family has moved away.