Tove **** (2020, Alma Pöysti, Krista Kosonen, Shanti Roney, Joanna Haartti, Kajsa Ernst, Robert Enckell, Eeva Putro) – Movie Review

Alma Pöysti stars in director Zaida Bergroth’s biographical drama Tove (2020) as Finnish painter Tove Jansson, in a tale of the artist’s complicated personal relationships and creation of the incredibly popular Moomin comic strips and books. Tove is Finland’s official submission for the Best International Feature Film category of the 93rd Academy Awards in 2021.

It is Helsinki, 1945, and Tove Jansson is a privileged, modern, liberated postwar woman, into art, parties, good living, an open relationship with a married male politician and then simultaneously another relationship with the tall, dark and beautiful theatre director Vivica Bandler (Krista Kosonen), a cynical, promiscuous woman who fascinates her but does not reciprocate her love.

Tove has father issues. Her sculptor father has strict ideals about life and art that do not, apparently, include the Moomins. Tove has issues with the Moomins too. She wants to be a serious painter, but is broke and her doodles, unlike her paintings, are in big demand.

Tove wants to have everything, and she has more than almost anybody, becoming immensely rich and famous through the Moomins. But success as a painter, the warmth of her father’s affection, and the love of Vivica evade her.

It really is a haunting, fascinating story, very revealing as a portrait of the artist as a young woman, and beautifully performed by the whole cast, but especially Pöysti. The script is very expert, raising the issues and themes subtly but impactfully while keeping the characters alive and the dialogue and situations credible. It is taut and succinct.

With its big budget, loving period re-creations and gorgeous cinematography, the film looks a treat, and Linda Wassberg won the Sven Nykvist Cinematography Award at the Göteborg Film Festival 2021.

Writers: Eeva Putro (screenplay) and Eeva Putro and Jarno Elonen (story).

Also in the cast are Shanti Roney, Joanna Haartti, Kajsa Ernst, Eeva Putro and Robert Enckell.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Movie Review

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