Juho Kuosmanen's charming partial-biopic, THE HAPPIEST DAY IN THE LIFE OF OLLI MÄKI

Based on a short period in the career of a real-life boxer from Finland, THE HAPPIEST DAY IN THE LIFE OF OLLI MÄKI, directed and co-written (with Mikko Myllylahti) by Juho Kuosmanen, proves one of those sweet and very low-key Finnish films (think Aki Kaurismäki but not as stylized) that are charming, very easy to view and never push too hard in any direction. The movie may not lodge itself in your permanent memory, but I very much doubt you'll be sorry you saw it.

Kuosmanen's film (the director is shown at left) tracks the training period leading up to and including the world championship fight for featherweight title in 1962 fought by the titular Olli Mäki against an American fighter named Davey Moore. Happiest Day is sweet movie and actually quite romantic (especially for a boxing story) as Olli (below) and his girlfriend Raija (Oona Airola, further below) bond, break apart a bit, and then join again, as the championship match approaches. Not much happens beyond the budding love story, but we do get to view the boxing training, the PR machine, the news media and other typical artifacts circa the 1960s, brought to life in some nice period detail (though I must question the stadium shown us that has that huge video screen that certainly could not have been present in 1962).

Otherwise, the movie stays nicely on track as we get to know Olli and his attitudes to everything from sports and family to love and relationships. (His non-boxing profession was that of baker, and I'm sorry that the film does not give us a bit more of that.)

Instead we get a good dose of he effect that Olli's friend and trainer, Elis (Eero Milonoff, at right, below) has on the boxer, and for the most part it's not such a good one. Here, Elis' ambition and desire for success seem to trump all else, and Olli must fight doubly hard (even though he barely seems to understand this or how to do it) in order to hold on to his humanity and his woman.

But, as I say, the movie is Finnish and so it seldom pushes for effect but instead lets character win out over event. Performances are as genuine as can be, and because the film is based on real-life people and, we must assume, a lot of facts, what we see, hear and feel goes down all the more easily.

The last scene, in particular, is a charmer. Note the old couple our hero and heroine pass by and comment on as they walk along, and then be sure to read the cast list during the end credits. You'll be delighted with what you discover.

A rare theatrical release via MUBI, which we know best for its streaming service, The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki, running 92 minutes, opens this coming Friday, August 21, in New York at the Angelika Film Center and the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas and in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Royal, to be followed by an exclusive digital release on MUBI. 

Blu-ray/DVDebut: the Teplitzky/Boyce/Paterson adaptation of Eric Lomax's THE RAILWAY MAN

"The Japanese: such a cruel race." That line from the film version of Bridget Jones' Diary, spoken by Gemma Jones with utter panache and impeccable breeding, immediately entered my pantheon of hilarious movie moments. The line came to mind again, for very different reasons, during my viewing of THE RAILWAY MAN, the screen adaptation of Eric Lomax's popular book about his own experiences in WWII, directed by Jonathan Teplitzky from a screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce and Andy Paterson. What a story here unfolds: the war, specifically the war in the Pacific, together with the imprisonment, torture and killing inflicted by the Japanese on, in this case, some young and not-so-young men in the British military.

Not having read the book, I can only comment on the quite lovely-to-look-at movie that has resulted, featuring fine performances from the always exceptional Colin Firth and the almost always good Nicole Kidman, and excellent ones, too, from Stellan Skarsgård and, as the fellow who pays the younger version of Firth, the well-chosen Jeremy Irvine. As directed by Mr. Teplitzky (shown at right, who directed 2011's interesting Burning Man), the film begins very well, as it moves back and forth in time from WWII to several decades later, during which the post-traumatic stress endured by the characters played by Firth and Skarsgård becomes nearly unendurable.

The film works so well in its initial stages, as Lomax and his wife-to-be (above) meet, fall in love and marry, and we learn of the dreadful things that happened to the younger character and his comrades (below) in the war, that the movie builds beautifully a real head of steam that eventually takes us to a place where we begin to understand why some ex-soldiers can never talk about what they went through in wartime, for fear of complete collapse into horror and madness.

The movie eventually reaches the point that we've been waiting for, in which Lomax has the opportunity to meet again, after all these decades, the Japanese man who helped instigate and facilitate his torture. What will happen -- retribution, reconciliation, redemption?

These three "re" words are quite popular with moviemakers these days, and for good reason. Two of them provide the kind of feel-good experience many audiences dearly love, while the third -- retribution -- offers the vengeance other audiences crave. (Often it's the same audience: We can love revenge and forgiveness, too!)

The Railway Man appears to be offering all three of these pleasures, but it pulls its punches on each. Without giving away spoilers, I'll just say that, for me, the movie simply withered, the closer it came to its final resting place. It begins to plod, just when it needs to soar.

This is because the filmmaker has not found the specific filmic vocabulary for reconciliation and redemption. He's filled his film with great natural beauty, but this isn't enough. He and his screenwriters have not given the actors the specifics required via dialog and visuals to make the huge but necessary leap required.

We understand what is happening, all right, but it's all too easy and obvious. The depth of feeling, of experience, of understanding, is still missing. Which is too bad because there is still much to love about The Railway Man, which is worth a watch if you'll just tamp down those expectations. Unless, of course, you are one of those for whom redemption and "redumbtion" are a little too closely related.

Meanwhile, you can see the movie, running 116 minutes, in a sterling Blu-ray transfer or on DVD this coming Tuesday, August 12, when its hits the street via TWC and Anchor Bay Entertainment. 

Ben Hickernell's & Sarah Megan Thomas' BACKWARDS: Vanity, thy name is woman (with a pair of oars)

For a "vanity" production -- and I'm afraid there is no way around classifying this movie as anything but, since it is said to be based on the life of Sarah Megan Thomas and was written, produced and executive-produced by Ms Thomas, who also plays herself in the starring role -- BACKWARDS isn't half bad. It's competently acted, written and directed and is almost completely uninspired in any way. The Lifetime and Hallmark channels give us this sort of thing with thudding regularity. But it is certainly as watchable (lovely to look at and filled with pretty performers) as most anything else of this ilk.

Ms Thomas (above and on poster, top) plays Abigail Brooks, a young woman of almost thirty who has spent her life training for the Olympics in the women's rowing competition, who, one day, sees what looks like her final opportunity go down the drain. Living with her widowed mom (the always fine Margaret Colin, below), she spends some time licking her wounds before getting back to business and becoming a coach to some younger rowers.

This not-unattractive young woman does seem to have a "thing" for her coaches; she's romantically involved with her current assistant coach (we find out next to nothing about this, however) and appears to have had a fling, too, with her former coach (James Van Der Beek, below), who has suddenly come back into her life.

The story, simplicity itself, takes our heroine along a prescribed path (which may very well have been the way it went in her life), leading up to a fateful decision she must make, which will show us -- and her -- whether or not she is a caring or a selfish person. If you have seen a few movies in the genres of either the sports biography or the romantic drama, you'll have little trouble figuring out her decision before she does.

The most interesting scenes in the movie involves Abby's coaching of her two high-schoolers, and some of the scenes set on water are lovely to look at. Ms Thomas proves herself a capable enough actress; Van Der Beek is stalwart and hunky, as ever; and the two younger girls (newcomer Meredith Apfelbaum, above, front, and Alexandra Metz, rear) register strongly. Director Ben Hickernell (shown below), who last year gave us the very personal and moving Lebanon, PA, here seems simply to be doing the bidding of his star/writer/producer.

The biggest problem with Backwards is that everything in it seems near-generic and, plot-wise, achieved a tad too easily. The movie glides along pretty much as do the those rowers we see from a distance. As Abby herself tells the girls at one point, rowing may look easy, graceful and beautiful, but there's a lot of hard work behind it. Maybe, in terms of what our heroine is going through, and what this movie really needs, some of that hard work, in this case, should be experienced.

Backwards, from DADA Films with a running time of 89 minutes, opens tomorrow, Friday, September 21, in New York, Los Angeles and three Pennsylvania locations (Philadelphia, Bryn Mawn and Ambler), and will expand to several other cities in the week(s) to come.  You can see the entire currently-scheduled playdates by clicking here, and then clicking on SHOWTIMES and then on Theater Locations.  The movie will also be playing, starting Sept. 21, via VOD.

Christian Carion's FAREWELL exposes a funny/nasty/true cold-war spy tale

Real-life spy stories don't get much more bizarre than the one told in Christian Carion's by-turns droll and sad FAREWELL (L'Affaire Farewell). When this film made its American premiere last March at the FSLC's Rendez-vous with French Cinema (my earlier, shorter notice is here: click and scroll down), it seemed to provoke some confusion: Was the film a thriller? A satire? A drama? Truth? Or one of those semi-concocted creations "based on a real event"?  All of the above, I would guess.

The details of the actual "caper," as it unfolds under the quiet direction of M. Carion (shown at right), are just too juicy to spoil.  Suffice it to say that, via the leadership of our own Ronald Reagan, Russians spies had managed to reach as far up the U.S. ladder as the President's White House staff (and, yes, this is documented). If that's not enough to entice you to the film, the inspired casting of and surprising impersonation/performance by Fred Ward (below) as the then-sitting, if rarely thinking, President should clinch the deal. Mr. Ward, usually a delightful addition to any movie -- The Right Stuff to Remo Williams to Tremors -- here outdoes even himself.

With dialog in French, English and Russian and cinematography that appears to capture each place well (though the movie may have been economically filmed in Romania, for all I know), writer/director Carion (who also gave us the Academy-nominated Merry Christmas and The Girl from Paris) has now hit a very solid three for three, with each movie so different in time, place and subject matter that the only thing uniting them is intelligence and quality.

At the heart of his new film are two men: a young French engineer working in Russia and an older, disenchanted Colonel in the KGB. The latter, intent on bringing to a halt the degrading of the Communicst ideal, makes contact with the former, and after convincing him to help, begins passing documents that will blow open the vast Russian spy network that has by then infiltrated both France and the USA (many other countries, too, one suspects -- but it's these two that are here concerned).

Our Frenchman is played by Gallic "Everyman" Guillaume Canet (above) and the Russian by former-Yugoslav writer/director Emir Kusturica (below, right with Ingeborga Dapkunaite, as his wife).  Canet is just fine as the somewhat reluctant and then rather gung-ho emissary, but it is Kusturica who commands the movie.  His performance is so strong and deeply-felt (yet underplayed and quiet, as befits a fellow who has spent his working life pretending).  He possesses the natural gravitas to carry off what is one of the more difficult roles in recent cinema.

The real Russian Colonel, I recall reading, was not nearly as pure-minded and in fact more venal and cynical than the man portrayed by the film. Here perhaps is where the film's reality becomes smudged.  Yet, the filmmaker and his actor have created such an indelible portrait -- a sad, cynical man who still retains enough hope to continue trying -- that I happily sacrifice some reality in order to meet a character as richly conceived and portrayed as this one.

As the movie progresses, it also becomes more interesting, but then toward the end, there is a bit too much last-minute frenetics involving the usual "escape" routine of the Canet character and his family (Alexandra Maria Lara, shown above, right, with Canet, plays his wife).  So much of the film has been about ideas and ideals, how governments work (or don't) that this sudden escalation, even if true-to-life, seems manufactured.  The final section, however, devoted to what happens to our Russian, is so effective and moving that it is this you'll leave the theater feeling and thinking about.

Farewell, from NeoClassics Films Ltd., makes its theatrical debut today in NYC (at the Sunshine and Lincoln Plaza Cinemas) and in L.A. (The Landmark, Playhouse 7, Town Center 5 and Regal Westpark) today and will open on a number of other screens in the weeks to come.  You can find all scheduled playdates here (just click the link, then scroll down).