Hymyilevä mies

I and my wife watched it together. Totally lovable film, story. Enjoy a side of boxing, sports mostly ignored in artistic representation. Women will like this movie esp.

Overall, a good movie with a good story and a good direction. There is no dramatic event, but 'The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki' narrates Olli's journey to the most important game in his life calmly, peacefully, and honestly just like what everyday looks like for everyone. Because the movie does not add ANY salt or pepper, it loses intensity and density along the way especially toward the ending. The championship boxing match is supposed to be the peak or the burst of emotion and highlight of the film, but there isn't any emotion stored for more than an hour. The direction of the match does not meet the expectation. If you look at it from another perspective, it's a great achievement to lead 90 minutes without any particular events with a strong plot.

This film tells the story of an amateur boxer in Finland, who decides to challenge the World Champion of boxing from the USA. He gets an agent and invites the champion to Finland for a round of home fight. The story then concentrates on how he prepares for this major tournament in Finland.

The film is black and white, which is appropriate as it is set int he 1960's. The story is about this simple man who seems to have no idea what he is doing. Olli is about to fight the match of his lifetime, and yet he is so nonchalant about it. His heart has clearly another agenda, which is not aligned with his agent's agenda. It makes me wonder why he is doing the match in the first place. His attitude and behaviour leads to the eventual inevitable outcome, but I still feel for him. Olli does have his charms, just not in the boxing ring.

I really enjoyed this movie. I thought I might be put off by the black and white or that it would be dull (I'm not terribly interested in boxing) but instead I loved the black and white - it was incredibly beautiful, and I never found myself bored. Instead it was sweet and charming and very romantic and I found my self both chuckling and at other times, with tears welling up. Very nicely done. My husband, who is more an action adventure kind of guy - liked it enough but didn't love it as much as I did.

It may seem surprising, but there are other directors in the land of Aki Kaurismaki. And they are making enjoyable films as well. "The happiest day ... " is a small but pleasant production situated in the '60s.

For the boxing genre the film is remarkable relaxed. This time not a touchy flammable Jake La Motta as the main character ("Raging bull", 1980, Martin Scorsese) but the somewhat shy Olli Maki. Olli is very realistic about his chances of becoming world champion in his weight class, but he has luckily other interests too.

This is in my opinion the essence of the movie. The ego of Olli Mäki (Jarkko Lahti) has not to be tempered but rather to be fueled. The relationship with his trainer is not very good, but this is not due to the fact (as in many other boxing movies) because his trainer is corrupt. It is the task of the trainer to raise the money for the title-fight and this cannot be done without some commercial events. Events Olli doesn't like because he is shy in the first place and in love in the second place (or the other way round).

For a film about a boxing title fight you would be surprised what, at the end of the day, has happened on the happiest day in the life of Olli Mäki.

In Holland the film showed only for a very short period of time and only in a couple of art house theaters, but it is nonetheless well worth seeing.