ALMOST 18 (Kohta 18) B-
Finland (110 mi) 2012 d:
Maarit Lalli
There were five of us
guys… I think we all had normal families. Normal problems. Normal feelings.
There was nothing we couldn’t overcome. And then one year, for some reason,
everything started going to shit. —Joni
(Ben Thompson Coon)
A big winner at the 2013 Finland Jussi Awards, winning Best
Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay, yet despite the acclaim,
there are plenty of drawbacks to this film, where the sketchy portraits often
feel isolated and lead nowhere, never really connecting the dots to an overall dramatic
theme. While it’s the coming-of-age saga
of five male friends who are about to turn 18, a major step in one’s life as
it’s symbolic of young adulthood and possibly moving away from home, the film
is divided into five twenty-minute segments highlighting each kid, sarcastically
narrated by the oldest who has already turned 18, Joni (Ben Thompson Coon),
seen in the opening segment in family therapy acknowledging he’s never really
had a single happy moment with his family.
While there is plenty of humor, not the least of which is the
self-effacing Finnish take on their nation’s inept hockey team that perpetually
loses to both Sweden and Russia, the individual segments highlight the family
dysfunction which at times can get dramatically serious and overly involved,
where at times the parents troubling behavior seems destined to drive their
kids out of the house, a feeling they already shamefully regret even though it
hasn’t happened yet. Written by the
director and her son, Henrik Mäki-Tanila who plays Karri, seemingly the most
well adjusted kid, seen getting often hilarious driving lessons from his
mother, Elina Knihtiä, the star of The
Good Son (Hyvä poika) (2011), who knows her son’s habits well, ordering him
out of the car to take a breath test after he’s been out drinking all night,
but they’re the happiest together, as they continually poke fun at one another
with good-humored sarcasm. If the rest
of the film was as good as this segment the film would be highly
recommended. It’s easily the most
intimately personal of the bunch, as without a father in the home, these two
really care about each other.
Nonetheless, he’d much prefer hanging out with the guys, who at one
point or another celebrate each others 18th birthday in style, seen during the
summer jumping off a rock cliff into the sea, where there’s a youthful
enthusiasm usually enhanced by typical adolescent experiences with alcohol and
smoking pot.
While girls are present, they don’t really figure
prominently in the film, which is a bit surprising, as you’d think sex would be
all these guys think about. Pete (Anton
Thompson Coon), yes, real life brothers with the actor playing Joni, does have
girlfriend problems of his own, caught up in the abortion dilemma, comforting his
girlfriend after she takes an abortion pill.
His biggest surprise, however, is reserved from his parents who happily
inform him on his 18th birthday that his mother is pregnant. Pete goes into a deliriously self-centered
extended rant on the woes of being a teenager, railing against his parents, where
he literally curses them out for acting like kids who ought to be ashamed of
themselves. His parents, meanwhile, sit
there quietly holding hands just waiting for him to conclude his tirade, glad
that he’s taking it so well. Easily the
most poignant sequence is André (Karim Al-Rifai), seen picking up his little
brother at daycare when his mother, who’s rarely at home, has forgotten. The relationship between the two brothers
beautifully expresses brotherly tenderness, even with the youngest crying out
for attention, usually inappropriately, as he’s continually left alone, where
André is the only real parent he knows, so he constantly bargains for more time
together. André struggles with juggling
his own life, including schoolwork, buying groceries, preparing food, putting
his brother to bed, calming him afterwards when he has nightmares, and after
finally getting him asleep, having to greet his loud and heavily intoxicated
mother when she arrives at the door around midnight with a lecherous guy on her
arm. His mother (Mari Perankoski) is
easily the most despicable character in the film, suggesting a reversal of
roles, where it’s the parents that act more childishly irresponsible than their
fairly well behaved children.
Perhaps the most bizarre cultural reflection of Finnish child-rearing
is the absent alcoholic father, where Akseli (Arttu Lähteenmäki) spends the
weekend with his grandparents, who politely disappear when his non-verbose father
arrives, inviting his son into the woods to go hunting, where his father continually
drinks beer and the two of them sit there in an elevated wooden hunter’s nest
without uttering a sound. It’s only
fitting they have a Finnish sauna where his father jumps into the freezing
river afterwards while Akseli grabs a beer and quickly searches through his
father’s shirt for cigarettes. This
relationship might be sad if it wasn’t so pathetic, offering plenty of dour insight
into the remote emotional isolation of Scandinavia. Joni’s segment is first and last, dressed up
in an oversized, furry wolf costume at the Linnanmäki
amusement park in Helsinki, where young girls love to run up to him and squeeze
his soft fur, where he is seen surreally riding his bike or walking next to the
sea in costume. When we meet his mother, Niina Nurminen, she appears young and
vivacious, but instead of recalling what it’s like to be a moody, self-absorbed
teenager, she becomes openly suspicious and hounds her son, pestering him with
questions once she discovers his love of pot smoking. His mother literally freaks out, showing a giant-sized
crack in the armor of her all-controlling world, where she runs her family like
a drill sergeant expecting everyone to pass inspection. Is it any wonder Joni is drawn to the mellow,
more laid-back mood of pot smoking? And
while it’s true, he’s a stone cold pothead, it doesn’t limit his prospects for
the future, as he’s intelligent, socially outgoing, probably the leader of the
group, and would likely succeed at anything he attempted. At the moment, however, he takes his furry
wolf outfit to all-girl parties, becoming something of a stripper and hired sex
object, a nighttime job that covers his drug expenses. Featuring plenty of naked backsides, a
recurring image is seeing the group of five pilfering a sofa to sit comfortably
overlooking some natural landscape, as if suspended in a state of inertia, where
the film often feels more like a collection of vignettes, where what’s missing is
a common thread holding it all together.
