So this is a Finnish romcom, of sorts. All the reviews talk about how funny it is, and how it’s all bittersweet and what-not, and like… okay, yes, there are bits of it that are darkly amusing, I’ll grant that. But as to “bittersweet,” we’re talking like 90% chocolate here: It is very bitter, and not particularly sweet at all.

The protagonists of the movie are sad, depressed losers. She lives alone and as the movie starts is being fired from her grocery store job for stealing expired food; he lives in a worker’s dorm, and is fired for being an alcoholic and causing an accident. They meet in a sad bar, and then again later outside an even sadder bar (where she loses another job, and he’s going to get drunk before breakfast). From there, I won’t give any spoilers, except to say that there is an increasingly implausible series of incidents that prevent them from getting together quickly.

One of the weird things here is that the movie is clearly set during the Russian invasion of Ukraine — news broadcasts about it on the radio are the audio background to a lot of the movie — and yet tech/culture-wise, it feels much older. Characters exchange phone numbers by writing them down on paper, the only mobile phone seen has clicky buttons instead of a touchscreen, and oh yeah, people are listening to radio broadcasts at home like it’s WW2 or something. Combine that with the older pictures being shown in a theater (which tbf might be a repertory theater) and that people still smoke in bars (which tbf might just be a Finnish thing, idk), and it feels very out of time. This is, apparently, intentional, trying to create a fairy tale vibe, but it sorta just feels like the director (like all directors) really hates how uncinematic smartphones and TVs are and wanted to make a movie without them but also without making a true period piece.

My main problem with the movie, though, is that I simply didn’t buy the core relationship. At one point, she says “I really like you a lot” to the guy, and it’s like: why?!? He’s done nothing charming or interesting in any way. The main thing going for him seems to be that he’s interested in her. Maybe that’s enough for these sad, desperate people, but reviewers watching this movie talk about its “unrelenting optimism” and how it’s all uplifting and feel-good, and I wonder if we watched the same movie.