kathik

The excellent comedic talent, Aasif Mandvi, plays a lovable character named Samir in a very funny comedy about Samir's life in New York. He works as a sous chef in a nice restaurant with the hope of becoming a full chef in his boss's newly opening restaurant. When that position fails to materialize for him, Samir quits in a huff and decides to move to Paris for an unpaid position with a famous chef there.

Not too surprisingly, it turns out he needs to stay in New York because of a family crisis (I won't say what) and Samir's help is needed with the family business. A thoroughly delightful story follows that is full of heart and full of humor, for a totally enjoyable experience! Highly recommended!

I saw this film directed by Mika Kaurismaki (one of the famous Kaurismaki brothers) at the 2010 Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival, and I can say that the entire theater was cracking up laughing at this film. It doesn't pretend to be anything but great comedy - actually black comedy, given that the topic is the break-up of a marriage - and it succeeds very well.

Tuula, the wife, and Juhani, the husband, are a nice couple living in a nice house. He is a family therapist and she conducts motivational business seminars. Both are successful professionals, and both expect to have an amicable separation and divorce once they made the decision to break up the marriage. They start with Juhani moving his bed into another room and the two setting up rules to manage living in the same house until the divorce finalizes.

When one of them breaks an important rule, it starts the roller-coaster ride of hurts and retribution going, all handled in a very funny comedic way! Things are not the same after that.

This film pulls out all the stops showing normal human reactions to separation and divorce with a lot of humor and craziness thrown in. Since it could be described as "divorce, Finnish-style," there certainly are some cringe-worthy moments as well. Relationships gone bad are not pretty.

The craziness gets almost over-the-top when some criminal characters enter the picture, as relatives of our couple! As unlikely as that may be, it adds to the funny situations that occur, so, as far as I'm concerned, all is forgiven! Don't expect anything too deep here, just enjoy the laughs!

This surprising film introduces us to a contemporary, conservative Lutheran sect with over 100,000 members in Finland through the lives of two 18-year old girls of the sect, one of whom rebels against her religion's taboos (no TV, no dancing, no make-up, no alcohol, no sex before marriage and no kissing before marriage) by leaving her village in northern Finland to visit the "evil" big city Helsinki and experience "life." The second 18-year old girl is sent by church elders to follow the rebel, watch over her, and keep her from falling into sin and ending up in eternal hell.

Now we have a situation that promises to bring about something of interest, and it does. The story continues with the familiar inner conflict of desiring forbidden experiences and how each individual reacts to the big city's temptations. Not to give away the story further, I'll just say the two girls in question are easy on the eyes and the director certainly knows it. My only criticism might be the understandable yet slightly too frequent lingering on the faces of these lovely girls, but this is certainly a minor criticism.

I highly recommend this beautifully done film!