The story of Touko Laaksonen, the artist who helped shape the tastes of a generation of gay men, Tom of Finland is almost as handsome and glossy as the drawings of luxuriantly leather-clad fantasy figures with which he made his name. Having served during the second world war with distinction, Laaksonen (a sober, watchful performance from Pekka Strang) returns home to Finland to be reminded that, as a gay man, he is perceived as the enemy.
In a society that considered homosexuality a crime or a deviance, Laaksonen, using the pen name Tom of Finland, imagined an unfettered alternative – a sexuality that filled its figure-hugging trousers with joy and promise, along with other more obvious attributes. While Dome Karukoski’s film-making feels quite cautious next to the balls-out bravery of his subject, this biopic certainly doesn’t water down Laaksonen’s distinctive aesthetic, nor does it downplay the role of this unassuming Finnish man as an icon of gay liberation.
