I'm somewhat conflicted in how I feel about this film. On the one hand, I think it would be too dry to have a movie solely about this incident regarding the missile, especially considering that the only settings available would always have to be this frozen Lappi countryside and the various dark indoor areas. Therefore, the (rather predictable) idea to combine it with a family drama was what they went with.
The leading lady acted wonderfully and the most powerful part of the movie was its portrayal of domestic abuse, and how adults can almost develop two personalities when talking to children or other adults.
However, the development of the missile story itself was very long, and often quite tedious. The choice was to make the military unsympathetic and Lapin Uutiset the underdogs, but again without the kind of "drive" from those main characters, we get bogged down at a snail's pace. I've not seen a great deal of Finnish cinema yet, but Hannu-Pekka Björkman appears to be in every Finnish film ever made. He's great in this, and his simple one-on-ones with Oona Airola are probably the finest moments that we get. The interaction and perplexion as these no-hoper alcoholics mix for the only time in their lives with the top brass at the BBC - that kind of stuff was really enjoyable.
But there's just not enough of it. I didn't know that this was a true story (the missile part at least) until a wikipedia search the day after viewing. Like most flawed historical films, it doesn't handhold enough and relies too much on the kind of angst (in this film's case, nuclear angst) that as a viewer I just didn't feel. Therefore, the choice to build the suspense wasn't a correct one, and I think a shorter, sweeter film that cut out the extended "people sitting down in meetings" scenes and "people having inconsequential shower conversations" scenes (although the Väyrynen joke was a good one) would have been a much stronger one. But this is Finnish cinema we're talking about: there HAS to be 30 minutes of the film dedicated to people talking inconsequentially (or not at all) in meeting rooms.
However, in spite of all my criticisms, there are a lot of laughs and our two main protagonists have great on-screen chemistry. The metaphorical duality of dangers at home and dangers for the world was written and played out well - it just needed better editing.
The leading lady acted wonderfully and the most powerful part of the movie was its portrayal of domestic abuse, and how adults can almost develop two personalities when talking to children or other adults.
However, the development of the missile story itself was very long, and often quite tedious. The choice was to make the military unsympathetic and Lapin Uutiset the underdogs, but again without the kind of "drive" from those main characters, we get bogged down at a snail's pace. I've not seen a great deal of Finnish cinema yet, but Hannu-Pekka Björkman appears to be in every Finnish film ever made. He's great in this, and his simple one-on-ones with Oona Airola are probably the finest moments that we get. The interaction and perplexion as these no-hoper alcoholics mix for the only time in their lives with the top brass at the BBC - that kind of stuff was really enjoyable.
But there's just not enough of it. I didn't know that this was a true story (the missile part at least) until a wikipedia search the day after viewing. Like most flawed historical films, it doesn't handhold enough and relies too much on the kind of angst (in this film's case, nuclear angst) that as a viewer I just didn't feel. Therefore, the choice to build the suspense wasn't a correct one, and I think a shorter, sweeter film that cut out the extended "people sitting down in meetings" scenes and "people having inconsequential shower conversations" scenes (although the Väyrynen joke was a good one) would have been a much stronger one. But this is Finnish cinema we're talking about: there HAS to be 30 minutes of the film dedicated to people talking inconsequentially (or not at all) in meeting rooms.
However, in spite of all my criticisms, there are a lot of laughs and our two main protagonists have great on-screen chemistry. The metaphorical duality of dangers at home and dangers for the world was written and played out well - it just needed better editing.
