AllMovie

Based on a book by the popular children's author Ole Lund Kirkegaard, this is a whimsical tale of Ivan (Alex Svanbjerg), a little boy who fails at athletics and lags in his reading skills, occasioning jeers and abuse from his classmates -- they call him the "rubber Tarzan" when he cannot lift weights. (His father extols Tarzan to his young son as a symbol of manliness.) Ivan is alone until he makes friends with Ole (Otto Bandenburg), a kindly crane operator who understands Ivan's solitude and encourages him with the lesson that everyone has something at which they excel -- it is only a matter of discovering it. When that lesson starts sinking in, the change in Ivan may also mean a change in the way others look at him as well.