Mina Ja Morrison or Me and Morrison, is the second in the Levottomat
trilogy. The goal of the trilogy was to get three different views of youth and
lust in contemporary Finland. The first dealt with upwardly mobile 20-somethings.
For this second one, we are at the fringes of society with marginalized
characters. Note that we have a new director, and no returning characters, so it
is not truly a sequel. We do have a returning actress, however. Irina Bjorklund
plays a young woman with an attitude and a drinking problem. She lives with a
fashion model who is tiring of Irina's games, and her inability to hold a
job and pay her share of the rent. Things change when she meets Samuli Edelmann
at a club, and ends up waking up in his bed.
First big surprise is finding that he has a son the next morning. He tells
her a long story about dead parents, a wife who died of heroin overdose, and
about how he is going to move to Belize, and wants to take her. He seems to be
the same sort of party animal she is, and it looks like she might find
redemption in his arms. She forces herself along on a trip with he and his son,
where we learn that he is a heroin addict deeply in debt to some dealers, and is
being forced to smuggle to pay off his debt. He has a plan to double cross them
and leave the country with the profits. The film title comes from his devotion
to Jim Morrison.
I am not fond of "drugs suck" films in general, and this had all the problems
inherent to the genre. The story is too
dark, and all of the fun is gone for the second and third acts, followed by the
usual appropriately unhappy ending. Having noted that, one must add that it hits
the right notes for the genre, and had a talented principal cast developing
fully realized characters. Irina Bjorklund
proved yet again that she is an excellent actress, and won the Best Actress
Jussi. Samuli Edelmann also gave
a good performance, and Roope Karisto was great as his son. Eva Rose was the
lone disappointment, playing a one-dimensional airhead.
If you are not familiar with our grading system, you need to
read the
explanation, because the grading is not linear. For example, by
our definition, a
C is solid and a C+ is a VERY good movie. There are very few Bs
and As. Based on our descriptive system, this film is a:
