Attended the premiere, Nov 1st, without expectations. Ismo is 3 years my junior, so we belong in the same approximate microgeneration, sharing it with the celebrity likes of Lauri Ylönen, Ville Valo or Kimi Räikkönen.
The Ismo Film tries to show what a "clown" is made of, whether there are tears behind the façade of one. And - there are. A young Ismo used to cry to his mother that he is "terminally shy; something which is father's (genes') fault..!", thus accusing his mother of wrong paternal choice. But, he turned out alright in spite of this, come the blooming into that happens during college years, in his case in neighbouring university town Jyväskylä, which is the "Athens of Finland", maybe corresponding in some way to Athens, GA.
Ismo knows how to woo the fastidious and fussy American audiences. Unlike American comedians, he does not dive into bigotism, cheap caricatures and class. His humour is about semantics. He dissects words from many angles, milks them for what they're worth (like rappers do?) and this way gets applauded by his audience. His "ADHD" brain makes all these connections that he forges between performances. So, in a way he offers a formula for becoming a standup comedian to those who could conceive of doing that. The downside of discoveries is that Ismo has a hard time going to sleep during his sleepless nights, and he dopes himself up with whatever pharmacies offer over the counter. Something young John Belushi might have confessed to as well... before AD 1983.
This movie employs the "hero's voyage" narrative, known from literary theory, to divide Ismo's journey up into convenient bits - as if Ismo was Frodo in LotR. It is well cut, edited and narrated, often by Ismo himself. For all that, a lot of the immersion comes from trying to reflect how I myself would behave and feel in his shoes rather than watching his "exploits" mouth agape.
Three stars off because Ismo keeps speaking over the end credits, something which is a cardinal sin. When the movie is over, it is over, and before that any stunts can be pulled, and the wool over the audience's eyes.
