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Fallen Leaves Movie Review

Fallen Leaves is a 2023 Finnish romantic drama film directed by Aki Kaurismaki and starring Alma Poysti and Jussi Vatanen. It’s a pretty solid, but far from great movie.

Ansa, a single woman, lives and works in a supermarket in Helsinki. One night she meets Holappa, an equally lonely and alcohol-dependent worker. Despite adversity and misunderstandings, they try to build a relationship. Last year I watched ‘The Man Without a Past’, which was among my favorite films I saw that year. This movie unfortunately has none of the magic of that masterpiece.

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This is a lesser Kaurismaki flick that has his signature elements, but they simply aren’t as strong or as memorable this time around. The movie is in essence a romantic comedy, but the comedic touches are so subdued, even more so than in his previous movies, that the movie ended up being more of a drama than a comedy.

But even as a drama, it was way too short and slim to be effective. Well, you can have a short movie be potent and powerful, so the length may not be an issue here, but what he did with most of his scenes, which was to mostly waste them on too much padding and not enough strong dialogue or humor or even characterization.

I simply did not care for these characters, though I did find the performances from Poysti and Vatanen equally effective and great. I did like their romance quite a bit and some of their scenes together were utterly charming, but individually they were uninteresting to me.

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Fallen Leaves has that cozy, charming feel to it that defines most Kaurismaki movies. The cinematography, usage of its setting and the handling of class issues were all quite potent and so were the film’s elegance and undeniable warmth as well as realism. Both tones are mixed here so well. I just wished for more dialogue and better characterization.