The arrow of love will pierce even a secure flannel shirt.

The sons would like to put their father in a nursing home, but of course the old Grump (Heikki Kinnunen) returns home, where only his neighbour Kolehmainen, who has a keen ear and a sharp eye, provides temporary companionship. Until, on a shopping trip, the touchingly stubborn old man meets the bright-eyed Saimi (Jaana Saarinen), who seems every inch the man’s opposite: a lively, free-spirited and bohemian artist. This woman, who smells just right, shakes up the Grump’s widowhood, so that he is forced to admit: the point of a holiday is to take a long look at the person you are on holiday with. This new situation and Saimi’s seemingly easy-going attitude to life have the boys worried sick, as the lovelorn old man seems to be easily fooled. Once a flannel shirt is exchanged for an old-fashioned suit...

Postcard pictures do not show the kind of Finland offered by Tuomas Kyrö’s novels about the Grump and Mika Kaurismäki’s films based on those novels. It is the dopey and laconic Grump who gives a face to the real countryman’s Finland, where no long talk is made, action is taken, and no madness from the rest of the world is allowed to interfere with their own madness. This indigenous Finland is sincere and heartfelt. And funny as hell in between.

Peep Ehasalu