En som deg

The Finnish title, Kaksi Tarinaa Rakkaudesta, translates as Two Stories About Love... which, for anyone with half a brain (and used to all the stupid tropes of these kind of films), gives away the entire plot as soon as Kaisa - the female lead - approaches the wrong man in a shop in Norway.

The film begins in Turkey, where Kaisa and her two mates conveniently meet three Norwegian men; Kaisa and one of the blokes hit it off and it's genuinely nice to see real chemistry with believable affections growing, rather than them just jumping into bed and the audience having to pretend along with them that they're in love.

Unfortunately, Kaisa is ultra annoying in her incessant questioning of something the man clearly doesn't want to discuss and when the men go back home, she's left regretting letting him get away.

Luckily, Kaisa has the finances and freedom to travel at will and she moves to Oslo, presumably with the hope of bumping into the dude on the street... which, obviously, was never going to succeed if her memories of him prompt her to approach a completely dissimilar-looking bloke to ask if he remembers her from Istanbul (note: it's actually the same actor in both roles, in a deliberate attempt to fool viewers, even though there's no way it's the same character).

Cue a love affair, during which time we wonder if Kaisa's supposed to be the world's worst dance teacher and all of a sudden, her and the new bloke are living in Helsinki... which makes the inevitable all the more ridiculous.

I won't ruin it for those who are blessed to not spot the endings of clichéd flicks like this a mile away, thus can enjoy them more than the rest of us, but - unless this film was partly funded with the stipulation of shooting some portion of it in Berlin - the ending makes no sense whatsoever, even though it was all so predictable a long time ago already.

Verdict: sadly, one of the better Finnish films, which demonstrates how awful things are when I can't really recommend this.

Wow! What the point of this movie was about - absolutely eludes me? Sure the basics are that a man and his friends meet a woman in a foreign land but then it would *almost* be giving the whole movie away to say - that pretty much nothing of any consequence happened afterwards: move along now please, there's nothing much for you to see.

And there isn't! To put things into context, my nym might suggest that I'm some some 90-ish IQ "Trashformers/Die Hard 4" fan who just happened to be trapped into seeing this movie, by someone near infinitely smarter. But, if you thought that, then you'd be absolutely wrong: For I'm a great fan of many of Eric Rohmer's movies. What's more, I rate many independent and foreign movies among my favourites. So, I've no issues with waiting for a wonderful movie to develop. It's just that 'Must Have Been Love' could just as easily have been titled "Must Have Been Love, But... We're Not Sure". Yes, it *is* that pretentiously banal!

Love amidst foreign climes is supposed to be rooted in intrigue, mysterious doubts & heady romance. Yet The people depicted in this movie have about as much personality as a pair of bus tickets to nowhere. In all honesty, its screenplay writer could not have written a more boring movie if he tried.

I give it 3/10 because it is well filmed, directed and scored. Apart from the aforesaid, the movie left my wondering aloud: 'what on earth was the point of that movie!?'

This movie was fantastic I loved it! The chemistry between the main characters was um electric, with adoring glances that seemed to say a thousand words.. I haven't seen chemistry in a movie in a while so I found it refreshing. There were a few things that I was slightly bothered by, I would say, some unanswered questions but the chemistry which was palpable, the acting which was superb and overall storyline made me actually see past that and thats saying a lot for me...this movie was quiet and beautiful not the usual over the top scenes in recent movies, no final scene where someone is running after someone or driving like a madman to get to the airport which seems to be in every movie nowadays.

I've spent my days searching for another movie like this. Still searching.........

I have rarely felt this complete emptiness while watching a movie. And especially one which I would have guessed has so much potential! I love Finnish, I love Norwegian; that alone should have been a good starting point. But the story managed to stretch my patience and finally, after a long wait, lead into nothing. There are these little glimpses of scenes, things that are just unfolding and could drive the plot on, but then they just disappear, and make way to the previously tried out nothingness. Like the scene where Anders is in his undies in the street in the middle of the night, the time when Kaisa leaves the group to get milk and wanders off to a different location, the talk between the Norwegian cousins in the kitchen.. Why? What? Where are all these bits of beginnings leading to? Nowhere. A total waste of time. I recommend watch something else. Anything.

A 2012 film that begins in Istanbul, moves through Oslo, Helsinki, and Berlin, and chronicles the love between two Scandinavians who meet while vacationing in Istanbul... And this movie was filmed on my very street. In the fall of 2012, I was in Ukraine, and this crew came and shot a film on my street; talk about a stroke of bad luck!

I hadn't seen any of Eirik Svensson's previous work until this picture. I tip my hat to him because he's helmed one of the better films shot in Turkey by a non-Turkish crew. Eschewing Orientalism and any jingoistic sentiment, he's captured some beautiful scenes, making good use of Istanbul's colors and sounds.

However, the film hits a snag with its pacing once it leaves Istanbul. So much so that even the camera angles and music become uneven.

The film is middling fare, and in that regard, it delivers on what it promises to its audience.