A beastly newborn, a retired cop with a taste for chaos and a family running on fumes: Yön lapsi, Overacting and Perhoset turn domestic life into dread, delirium and disappointment. Opening in cinemas, streaming on Netflix and airing on Yle Teema & Fem, they offer three very different ways for home to go wrong.
‘Yön lapsi’: The Baby Is a Beast, but the Noise Is Worse
Yön lapsi (Nightborn) is a Finnish horror film featuring Saga (Seidi Haarla), a mother on the brink of a nervous breakdown: her newborn son is a beast. Literally.
Rupert Grint plays her British husband Jon. Viewers remember him as the red-haired wizard Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter franchise.
The couple move to a Finnish forest, into a rotten house where trees grow from the floor and the newborn cries day and night.
One of the loudest cries in the history of cinema is the sonic pulse of the film. It’s relentless, like the screeching metal of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Hard to say which one is more disturbing.
The best part of the film is Seidi Haarla’s tour-de-force performance; she carries the film alone. Her pain can be felt in the seat, for good or ill.
Sadly the story sags in place and gets buried in the nonstop squealing of the child, whose face is hidden in the shadows.
The tension surrounding what the child may look like becomes the focal point, and this may not be what director Hanna Bergholm (Hatching) had in mind.
If it was . . . well then, I guess, it gets the point across.
‘Yön lapsi’ opens in cinemas on November 6.
‘Overacting’: Armed with Sausages and Bad Ideas
Overacting, a Thai-slapstick action comedy, lives up to its title.
Pongsak Pongsuwan, a veteran of Thai television comedy, dresses up in a police uniform because he can’t remember that he’s a retired tough cop, Winai.
His daughter, Nuch, played by Maylada Susri, tries to help her confused father by orchestrating fake police missions with the aid of a couple of transgender actresses who add more distraction than fun to the plot.
Overacting, helmed by Prueksa Amaruji, who also co-wrote the film, throws everything but the kitchen sink at the viewer. Some sticks. A lot doesn’t.
Amaruji cannot be blamed for the lack of creativity, though: pants are pulled off only to insert melons in the legs, making it a deadly boomerang that flies and flies and crushes a whole block of bad guys and ladies. Turns out that sausages are great as weapons too!
A couple of laughs here and there don’t justify the two-hour runtime. Cut 40 minutes and this ride might have been more tolerable.
‘Overacting’ arrives on Netflix on November 5.
‘Perhoset’: Beer and Broken Wings
Perhoset (Butterflies) is a 2024 Finnish comedy-drama, sadly, with a broken wing.
Directed by Jenni Toivoniemi (Seurapeli, Games People Play), it never really gets off the ground.
Now in her 30s, Siiri (Aksa Korttila) travels back to her hometown of Seinäjoki as a political assistant to Lena-Maj Linden (Leea Klemola), the minister of economic affairs.
Her father Petri (Jani Volanen), a former Tango Prince, is still melting some hearts in private performances with his smooth voice and shy smile.
But it turns out Petri rarely tells the truth and the lies clash with his estranged daughter, a hyper-focused millennial. The father-daughter chemistry is not cheered up by a melancholic minister in the middle of a divorce.
The saying goes, when life gives you lemons you make lemonade.
Siiri, Petri and Lena drink flat beer.
‘Perhoset’ makes its television debut on Yle Teema & Fem on November 5 and is also streaming for free on Yle Areena.
TONY ÖHBERG’S CUT is the founder’s personal film-review label for sharp, voice-driven takes on cinema, from wholehearted praise to outright rejection.