User reviews

While this movie is far from perfect it tells a thrilling story about the racism and prejudice that the Sámi face in their everyday lives. The cinematography is beautiful and the acting is stellar, especially by the protagonist. Since it is based on a book, it can perhaps be forgiven about falling into the same tropes about the Sámi being so close connected to their reindeer (it feels as if every movie makes sure to point out how important the reindeer herding is to the population even though far from every Sámi does this for a living).

The plot was decent and I can understand the frustration that the Sámi must feel since acts of violence towards them and their livestock is far from fictional. A few characters were underdeveloped and didn't add all that much to the story, which made the movie feel disjointed at times.

Overall it is worth the watch and tells an important story.

A very beautiful and well told drama from the north. This is truly something unique, that you havent seen before. A very important film.

It's extremely well directed, with many beautiful shots over the Nordic parts of Sweden. Its very well put together!

The acting dosent fail at all and stays a very high level throughout all of the movie.

The manuscript fails sometimes with some abit unrealistic parts, but other then that its something the makes the film very good.

The soundtrack is very good.

A very well told story, with excellent performances of drama. Something really good and unique that i totally recommend!

As a thriller this film is barely adequate BUT I still enjoyed watching it, basically for the Sami culture. I had never even heard of them before and was surprised to find out there was a group of white indigenous reindeer herders with their own language who suffered bigotry from descendants of migrants. Seems to be a global theme, huh? I even did some reading about The Sami after the show. It's a very interesting story which I will be studying more. Back to the film itself: to be fair it is well filmed, the characters are well developed and the performances are good. And beautiful landscapes. It does get a bit repetitious with certain character conflicts and snowmobile chases. But it is a directorial debut and, like I said, I kinda liked it. 7 stars.

We're in the reindeer herding region. These are the Sami, an indigenous people of Sweden, who make their living from reindeer herding. They have to cohabit with the locals, who want the region to be developed for mining. There's also a non-Sami native who enjoys killing the reindeer. But the police are not investigating. A young Sami woman tries to move the investigation forward against the police's will.

We're constantly in the cold, in the snow. The pace is slow. So is the pace of the film. But the plot, simple on the face of it, contains twists and turns (the mistreatment of women is mentioned, for example) that mean we're not in an investigative film with a false culprit to distract the viewer. The culprit is known very quickly, the plot being that the police never manage to catch him. So this is not a detective film, but a drama. With little vignettes of local life in the Sami community. The film has a realistic tone, which makes it a little slow. But it's coherent. Rather than being slow, it takes its time to develop the plot, articulated with local life.

Note that the music is far too present. It insists in a heavy-handed way to make the film seem suspenseful.

I know it is a cliche but the book was better. So if you liked this movie, please buy and read the book! There were a few great elements of the story from the book that were changed or left out in the movie which was a pity and it made the story more difficult to follow and jumping from one scene to the next at times. At the same time, I understand that a director has to make choices when adapting a book to a movie.

The cinematography is beautiful though, showing how beautiful Sapmi is in winter. So if you don't like reading, please watch this movie to still get a feeling for the discrimination that is still going on in northern Sweden.

I'm not a big fan of Birro, who is behind the story. But I still wanted to give it a chance.

The film is incredibly slow. It mainly deals with the Sami people and their reindeer husbandry. The actors, apart from Martin Wallström, are relatively unknown and mostly consist of Samer.

The story is recognizable from what you have heared in the media about Samer. They take care of their reindeer and have it hard to live financially on it. Their beloved reindeer are being thief hunted.

Sometimes it feels like I'm watching a documentary about reindeer husbandry. The few moments of tension that do occur make up such a small part of the 2 hour film that it is negligible to the story. It also feels unrealistic in many ways. As an action film it doesn't work, as a thriller it doesn't work. However, if you want to see a drama about Sami people and reindeer husbandry, this is the film for you.

I'm so sick of the standard formula for American films that involves nothing but violence and evil, and the worst qualities of human beings. This film has touches of that, because that is part of humanity, but I also appreciate that it was based on a true story and it is, in the end, a triumph for a woman protagonist who has dealt with a lot of adversity. I hope we can see more films like this. The characters are realistic. Hopefully the story is closely aligned with the true story. It's also eye-opening to an American like me who was not aware of this part of the Swedish population. Again, great movie.

I worked for Scandinavian Design for 10 years. During that time I never knew anything about the Sami people that populate this corner of the world. We call it Lapland, but the indigenous people who inhabit it call their homeland, "Sápmi" . Parts of northern Sweden, Norway, and Finland, are inhabited by a rich culture that's hundreds of years old, that still rely on herding reindeer. "Stolen" is about the Sami living in today's world.

This movie may not have a unique plot, but it doesn't lack in cinematography, realistic characters, and authentic wardrobe. The plight of the reindeer herders depicted in this film will open your eyes to a life that's full of hard work, struggles with racist neighbors, and dealing with climate change. It also shows how well they have adapted to the modern world of cellphones, snowmobiles, and social media. I enjoyed the little details, like the beautiful Solje jewelry, and colorful costumes. This movie will immerse you in a story that covers about 20 years of a young girl's life. She becomes an outspoken activist against the people who are killing reindeer to punish the herders. Mining also threatens them, even though many herders have turned to working for the mining company, just to survive. There is a rift amongst family members and townspeople who don't want to rock the boat. "Stolen" will leave a thought provoking impression on you. Maybe make you want to travel to "Sápmi". It looks gorgeous both in winter or summer.

I do not understand the low rating this movie has at the moment. I found it a gripping tale that had me genuinely feeling for the characters and their struggles.

The movie is fine. Editing and scenography and all is good. It's not an American blockbuster. But as a European I am glad about that (and maybe used to Scandinavian pacing in films, but even so).

The new light cast on a culture that's often overlooked and treated as a "perfect little touristic outing", with its own struggles in our modern world, is a welcome one in my opinion. The story is built up well, and so are the characters. Give it a shot. I watched it in the original language as well. I feel like it does a lot more service to the movie and culture.

I genuinely believe people that have issues with the story or characters are as prejudiced as some characters in the movie itself.

A different story about the Harrassment of a community of Sami raindeer herders in Lapland.

The scenery in the movie is beautiful, with the combination of the dramatic lanscape scenes, snow, raindeer and the colourful Sami themselves. I was drawn to the characters here, and their struggle against the surrounding community, the fear of the loss of their historical way of life, and depression amoung some of the main characters relating to their current situation.

It's not an action movie - it's another slow paced story, but very rewarding.

At the time of rating, the movie only has a score of 5.6 out of 10 - it deserves far more than that.

The movie is severly misscategorised and this seems to be the main issue with bad reviews, that it is a lame thriller...

This is a great movie about the struggle of indigenous people trying to protect themselves and their traditional lifestyle in the face of predjudice, discriminaton, hatred, misogyny and violence.

It feels very real and unsettling at times, because it is something you can imagine all over the world. They might not kill the *Reindeers* of the Navajo, Rohingya or Koorie peoples, but besides that they often face the same hardships and fights as the Sámi in this movie.

I'm going to check out the book by sámi author Ann-Helén Laestadius this movie is based on.

Its shelved mostly as contemporary fiction btw and does not try to be a thriller....

So cute and causes so much anger... I thought it would be a calm, silly film, but it causes so much anger, indignation and rancidity that it makes us want to try to kill this disgusting being, it only gets worse when we see the protagonist being treated with so many blessings misogyny and sexism, I'm running out of patience for these fictions that cause me staleness and internal anguish... The film is very good, I just don't know if it's me who let these things get me down or if we really have a negative impact on it... .

A young woman struggles to defend her Sámi heritage in a world where xenophobia is on the rise, climate change is threatening reindeer inheritance, and young people choose suicide in the face of collective desperation.

Even if this movie had no story, just the breathtaking visuals alone were worth the price of admission. The sweeping views of snow-covered lands as well as the hordes of reindeer made for stunning wallpaper. Luckily, Stolen was much more than that.

As an American, I knew very little about the Sami people other than what I read on Wikipedia and elsewhere. What impressed me about this movie was its attention to detail exemplified by traditional garb, Sami vocalizations (Joik), mentions in school about the Sami forcefully being assimilated Nordic culture as well as how their land was being usurped by the government, their high rate of suicide, and the oppressive prejudice they faced in the past as well as in modern times.

I can't say anything bad about the cinematography, story, direction, acting, set design, pacing, etc. They were all very well done. Yu could tell the writer and filmmakers had deep knowledge of the way the Sami people live, and it was refreshing to be introduced to a culture I'd never known before. Highly recommended.