This so-so Finnish comedy drama stars Antti Litja as a curmudgeonly elderly farmer, never named in the dialogue, who is forced by an injury to spend time in Helsinki with his milquetoast son Hessu (Iikka Forss) and career-minded daughter-in-law Liisa (Mari Perankoski). Naturally, his Alf Garnett-like sniping about modern ways, uppity women and the inadvisability of letting black people work in restaurants tests Liisa’s bourgeois capacity for politeness to the limit, especially when his irascible ways threaten a business deal with some Russian clients. With such an overworked set-up, the main intrigue lies in seeing exactly how dislikable writer-director Dome Karukoski is willing to make the characters before everything goes soft for the intergenerational rapprochement in the last act. Some might feel the satire is too lacking in edge, while the drama is a too flaccid to engage unless you’re really interested in Finnish cinema. But Litja and Perankoski are especially funny in the early stages as their mutual frustration with one another comes to a slow boil.
