Discussing the last scene will never stop it seems.... good!
I absolutely agree with you that it’s not meaningless at all. I’m not sure if the chocolate milk is really a „symbol“ for anything, but it’s true that in a way Elin describes herself or rather her life in her little monologue. This is how I see it:
I think the best way to bring out the meaning of the O’boy scene is to imagine what would be missing if it hadn’t been added to the script. The film would have ended with Agnes and Elin walking away from the schoolyard, which would have made a rather conventional, triumphant Hollywood-style ending – „me and you together, happy forever“. But I think that it is part of the magic of
Fucking Åmål that it does not end this way. Because everybody knows that this is not how such stories really end. The typical Hollywood romance ending is a lie, and everybody knows that.
Fucking Åmål does not tell this lie. It does not end with false promises, like Agnes and Elin walking away into a huge setting sun on the horizon or embarking on a white carriage to Stockholm. It shows Elin and Agnes where they were all the time, right there in Åmål. This points to the fact that life goes on and that the real problems for them still lie ahead.
Fucking Åmål stays true to its realism: On the one hand, the film shows how happy Agnes and Elin are, how perfectly comfortable they feel with each other – for the first time, Elin seems to be completely relaxed and at ease with herself, while Agnes is all smiles and giggles, and the two have the time to enjoy the simple pleasures of life. On the other hand, the film doesn’t cheat: It doesn’t deny the fact that this moment will pass, that the two will have to stand new conflict and fights against everybody in Åmål, but also between themselves. So we cannot know what is going to happen. But we can
believe in them. And this makes the ending all the more powerful, because that's how life
is. No »happy ever after« ending is guaranteed. But the thing is, we can believe in Agnes and Elin precisely because the realness of this ending. That’s why we care for them so much more than for all the other film couples. We can relate to them and we can aspire to be like them exactly because what’s happening here is so true and realistic.
Now, what about the chocolate milk? I think it’s there to teach us this lesson. Elin pauses and thinks of the way she used to be: desperately searching for fulfilment, trying to get the darkest, sweetest and most intense chocolate milk possible out of life, struggling and fighting against anyone who tried to hold her back. This obviously makes the film come full circle, it reconnects it with its beginning, when Elin mindlessly attacked Jessica for finishing the last drops of O’boy.
Fucking Åmål begins with a relentless fight over chocolate milk in which nobody gets to have any. But now it ends with a gentle sharing of it, showing that Elin finally found what she had been looking for and how much she has changed. And it's no coincidence then that she finally gets to have the happy sip of O'boy that she, or rather her former self, didn't get in the beginning, just exactly in the very second when Agnes looks up at her with that laugh and that precious look of love. But on the other hand, if you pay attention you’ll notice that Elin doesn’t speak in past tense when she talks about her trouble: „
I usually... Jessica gets mad! I use two grams of milk and 5,000 kg of chocolate. And it's always nearly black and then... Then I usually pour in more milk, but then the glass isn't big enough. Then I have to pour it into a bigger glass - or another glass if there isn't a big one. It makes a lot of chocolate milk.“ And this is just the realism that I was referring to: Elin is perfectly aware that this is how it is, even now, and how it’s gonna be. The world hasn’t changed. Life goes on, and there’ll be hard times ahead just like before, and a lot of tough fights, especially with Jessica. But – and this „but“ is what is new, this is the crucial difference that meeting Agnes means to Elin and makes her a new person: „
But that doesn't matter!“
She has found someone. So let them come!