I don't think I've seen more than one movie from Louhimies before watching this. I had read somewhat favorable reviews of this movie so I decided to watch it as it was showing on TV.
Oh well, where to start. Maybe I'll begin by saying that after an hour I was seriously considering if I should continue or not. This movie consists of many stories that all take place in a suburb of Helsinki. You have junkies, drunks, eating disorder, cancer, battery, bullying, reality TV, nudity, battery, drinking, neglected children, stereotypes, sex, extreme stereotypes, single parents, sex, dysfunctional relationship, adultery, stereotypes, mistreatment. Oh did I mention sex and single parents, how about stereotypes?
This movie is bloated with clichés and stereotypes. It could have been made as many separate movies, The seven (?) story lines are not bad for the most part. Most of them are actually quite good, but the duration of two hours makes most of them overly simplified or just not beefy enough. It was really quite frustrating to watch emotional scene after emotional scene with all the character background and development cut out. It's like a two hour trailer of seven movies. Every time a story changes to another story, it jumps from drama to drama. You just watch it with your mouth open and think if they put all the unpleasant and sad situations they could figure out and squeezed them into one movie.
There are a few stories that are a bit better scripted than others, but some of the stories are nothing more than cheap tearjerkers. They start with a quick or a non-existent intro, unpleasant things happen, and then they end. Many times making you just ask "why?". A single parent (oh, did I mention there are single parents?) yells her guts out to her seven year old son. You have absolutely no clue why she acts so, it just makes you scratch your head and wonder what the hell is going on. Why do these people behave like this? There are no backstories.
The movie in general is rather well made tho. Technically flawless. The acting is also good, but often pointless. Some characters are quite extreme and not very subtle, which gives performers possibility to show off. The children do a good job, they actually have the most subtle and nuanced performances here.
Then there are the thousand and one clichés about Finland, no thanks. And the constant use of sex, even in the cancer segment. Some misplaced jokes (did I hear a fart when an obese man was working out??). The soundtrack was there just to underline the already spoon fed emotional content. Or maybe shovel might be a better word for it.
Most women weren't very nicely portrayed in this movie. I also noticed that this movie shows Estonian and Russian women in a very stereotypical way. But then again almost all other characters are stereotypes too, so it's not that surprising.
If you like spoon fed emotions then this is for you. I'll give you a few examples, it's going to spoil a few segments, so skip the next few paragraphs if you don't want to read spoilers.
We have a boy who is always alone at home and his only friend is a dog that he's responsible for. His mother is very unlikable. Wine sipping, yelling, apparently a career woman, but we don't know for sure. Mother decides the dog isn't happy in the city and tells the boy she'll take the dog to the countryside where it has more space. The boy then overhears a conversation where his mother laughs with her friends about her actually killing the dog. End of story. There wasn't much purpose other than jerk tears. They've probably had the idea of showing how kids as young as 7 are getting too much responsibility and independence for their age, but the movie has such a simplified and underliney way of telling everything, it looses the core idea.
Or how about the teen girl willing to do everything for fame and not being "ordinary". Even if ending up in an x-rated video wasn't enough, they had to put in a random scene where this girl is eating tons of goodies and then throws up. "Hey, let's have her suffer from an eating disorder too!" This was particularly out of place, since Amanda Pilke's character is a very positive, friendly and charming character who clearly is just naive. Her (apparently) single father is probably the nicest and most normal character in the whole movie and their relationship seems very good.
I felt a bit similar after watching Crash (2004). It seems like a good movie with social commentary and all, but it's a really cheap way of telling it if you think about it.
Oh well, where to start. Maybe I'll begin by saying that after an hour I was seriously considering if I should continue or not. This movie consists of many stories that all take place in a suburb of Helsinki. You have junkies, drunks, eating disorder, cancer, battery, bullying, reality TV, nudity, battery, drinking, neglected children, stereotypes, sex, extreme stereotypes, single parents, sex, dysfunctional relationship, adultery, stereotypes, mistreatment. Oh did I mention sex and single parents, how about stereotypes?
This movie is bloated with clichés and stereotypes. It could have been made as many separate movies, The seven (?) story lines are not bad for the most part. Most of them are actually quite good, but the duration of two hours makes most of them overly simplified or just not beefy enough. It was really quite frustrating to watch emotional scene after emotional scene with all the character background and development cut out. It's like a two hour trailer of seven movies. Every time a story changes to another story, it jumps from drama to drama. You just watch it with your mouth open and think if they put all the unpleasant and sad situations they could figure out and squeezed them into one movie.
There are a few stories that are a bit better scripted than others, but some of the stories are nothing more than cheap tearjerkers. They start with a quick or a non-existent intro, unpleasant things happen, and then they end. Many times making you just ask "why?". A single parent (oh, did I mention there are single parents?) yells her guts out to her seven year old son. You have absolutely no clue why she acts so, it just makes you scratch your head and wonder what the hell is going on. Why do these people behave like this? There are no backstories.
The movie in general is rather well made tho. Technically flawless. The acting is also good, but often pointless. Some characters are quite extreme and not very subtle, which gives performers possibility to show off. The children do a good job, they actually have the most subtle and nuanced performances here.
Then there are the thousand and one clichés about Finland, no thanks. And the constant use of sex, even in the cancer segment. Some misplaced jokes (did I hear a fart when an obese man was working out??). The soundtrack was there just to underline the already spoon fed emotional content. Or maybe shovel might be a better word for it.
Most women weren't very nicely portrayed in this movie. I also noticed that this movie shows Estonian and Russian women in a very stereotypical way. But then again almost all other characters are stereotypes too, so it's not that surprising.
If you like spoon fed emotions then this is for you. I'll give you a few examples, it's going to spoil a few segments, so skip the next few paragraphs if you don't want to read spoilers.
We have a boy who is always alone at home and his only friend is a dog that he's responsible for. His mother is very unlikable. Wine sipping, yelling, apparently a career woman, but we don't know for sure. Mother decides the dog isn't happy in the city and tells the boy she'll take the dog to the countryside where it has more space. The boy then overhears a conversation where his mother laughs with her friends about her actually killing the dog. End of story. There wasn't much purpose other than jerk tears. They've probably had the idea of showing how kids as young as 7 are getting too much responsibility and independence for their age, but the movie has such a simplified and underliney way of telling everything, it looses the core idea.
Or how about the teen girl willing to do everything for fame and not being "ordinary". Even if ending up in an x-rated video wasn't enough, they had to put in a random scene where this girl is eating tons of goodies and then throws up. "Hey, let's have her suffer from an eating disorder too!" This was particularly out of place, since Amanda Pilke's character is a very positive, friendly and charming character who clearly is just naive. Her (apparently) single father is probably the nicest and most normal character in the whole movie and their relationship seems very good.
I felt a bit similar after watching Crash (2004). It seems like a good movie with social commentary and all, but it's a really cheap way of telling it if you think about it.