European Films

Saara (Outi Mäenpää), a successful and beautiful gynaecologist, thinks she is happily married to Leo (Martti Suosalo), an architect who also teaches. Ironically, the only thing that seems to be missing from their lives is a child. On the day of her fortieth birthday, Saara is showered with attention by her husband before Leo’s sister Lea (Sara Paavolainen) and her husband Ilkka (Ville Virtanen) arrive. But between their love-making, his gift of red roses and a naked serenade and the moment Leo opens the door for his sibling and her family, Saara’s world comes apart. She discovers a packet of condoms in Leo’s guitar case with only three of the five condoms in place.

What started as a story of bliss with only a minor wrinkle soon turns into thriller that reminds of both the psychological Hitchcock classics and Tornatore’s most recent film as Saara confronts Leo, moves out and makes acquaintance with the girl in question, Tuuli (Ria Kataja), though she introduces herself as Crista, a psychiatrist. What seems to have grown out of an oversized fit of jealousy and some unpremeditated events slowly reveals itself to be something much worse: that of the careful creation of an intelligent brain at work, a brain that will stop at nothing (in a duel, even Tom Ripley would probably strike out if pitched against Saara).

Kotwica is nothing if not ambitious: he tries to keep the audience on the side of Saara for as long as possible, much like Highsmith did with Ripley and Tornatore did with his protagonist in La sconociuta. The Finnish director largely succeeds because of some careful plotting in the early sequences and the excellent Mäenpää, who convinces at every turn of the plot even as the turns themselves grow increasingly unbelievable. The use of masks in several sequences is key in keeping Saara/Crista’s identities separate, though Kotwica only barely avoids falling into clichés and needs to throw in a costumed ball to make everything work. As a nice devilish touch, however, Kotwica uses the ball as the stage at which Lea and Ilkka’s marriage is sucked into Saara’s maelstrom of deceit.

With a classical use of cinematography, especially when compared to Kotwica’s first feature, and a score heavy on the strings (composed by Eicca Toppinen of cello metal band Apocalyptica), the film feels very much like an old-fashioned effort of above-average intelligence and craftsmanship, with Mäenpää’s statuesque blond reminiscent of a proper Hitchcockian heroine. Occasional bursts of humour help relieve the tension.

It is a pity that the latter section of the film, which goes literally off the rails when Leo’s car hits a tree, does not seem to continue the restrained tone and until then edge-of-your-seat quality of what has gone before, trading in a deeply involving psychological thriller for the attributes of an over-the-top melodrama with touches of the absurd.

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