Never Alone

I can't remember ever watching a movie or even a full documentary about Jews in Finland during WWII. So this is an important movie. I trusted Härö would meet my expectations as his previous movies, ones that I've seen, have been deep with emotion and told stories that stay with you.

The movie is about Abraham Stiller, a businessman who plays an important role in stopping deportations of Finnish Jews and Jews that had moved to Finland to escape the holocaust.

Unfortunately I found myself disappointed. The characters remain quite distant, the events are spread over many years with big leaps so the overall storyarch leaves big gaps. Big world events are told in newspaper headlines but even those are few. Throughout the movie the war seems distant. The characters are living in their own bubble. I wasn't expecting big explosions and such but little details about everyday life struggles.

What's good about the movie is that it's well made, without big flair and pathos. The actors deliver their lines in multiple languages, which is always appreciated. Unfortunately, once again (often the case with Finnish movies) the sound mixing is bad and I had to rely on my own language skills and read Swedish subtitles even when the dialogue was in my own language (Finnish).

Bottom line: the movie is still historically important and worth watching even though it's only mediocre.

Unfortunately, it was a disappointing film from start to finish.. It is an important story that is generally unknown to the public but it was told via Hollywood-style film, with flat dialogues and endless clichés.

As a viewer, you found yourself knowing all about the characters, you could predict the ending of the movie, the ups and downs were given away almost immediately without any real explanation or descriptive cinematography. The movie was too predictable because of its writing and that left a lot to be desired.

On a more positive note, the soundtrack was great, as well as the photography. The protagonist was also clearly superior than the rest of the cast.