Hollywood films about teenage girls tend to have a formulaic feel every boy is Prince Charming. Every ugly duckling turns into Cinderella. And the prom is a prelude to living happily ever after. Show Me Love is not bound by those constraints. It's a powerful, deeply affecting depiction of the tribulations of two teenage girls struggling with their sexuality and identities.
16-year old Agnes (Rebecka Liljeberg) is a loner living in the small, dead-end town of Amal. Although attractive, she does little to care for her appearance, and there are rumours that she likes girls. Agnes has a deep crush on a fellow female student, Elin (Alexandra Dahlstr((ouml))m). One night, prodded by her older sister, Jessica (Erica Carlson), Elin plays a practical joke on Agnes by kissing her. Feeling remorseful she goes to Agnes' house to apologise. The two spend most of the night together and end with a real kiss. The next day, frightened by her feelings, Elin nabs Johan (Mathias Rust) as a boyfriend and ignores Agnes, who is understandably devastated.
Show Me Love is an emotional roller-coaster ride for viewers of both genders and all sexual orientations. But Show Me Love is less about lesbianism than it is about self-discovery. The script's perceptiveness provides us with a fresh, non-manufactured perspective on what it means to be a bored teenager. Released overseas with the attention-getting title of F---ing Amal, Show Me Love became a film festival favorite and an international box office success. This is one of the most honest and heartfelt teen dramas ever to grace the screen.

Rosetta is a young woman who will go to any lengths to survive. When her alcoholic mother runs off at the beginning of the film leaving Rosetta to live alone in a ramshackle trailer we think things can't get much worse but then we are shown we are wrong. At the beginning of the film Rosetta is fired from her job where she promptly smacks her boss, is chased by the police and returns to her mother's trailer to find her gone. She fishes in a filthy stream to eat and sells old clothes for money and even occasionally buries things like a squirrel. She befriends Riquet (Fabrizio Rongione), a boy her age who works in a mobile waffle stand. One day when Riquet falls in the stream and Rosetta waits an unusual amount of time before helping him to get out. She later confesses that she didn't want to help him as if he died she could get his job selling waffles. This is a story of a woman who feels employment equals happiness until she becomes employed and realises that she is no happier than before. Perhaps she never learnt to be. The film won the Palme d'Or at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival as well as best actress for its star Emilie Dequenne, playing Rosetta.