''Tom of Finland'' is a 2017

biographical A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or ...

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...

film directed by

Dome Karukoski Thomas "Dome" August George Karukoski (; born 29 December 1976) is a Finnish film director. He is considered to be one of Finland's most successful film directors, having won over 30 festival awards and having directed six feature films that beca ...

and written by

Aleksi Bardy Aleksi Bardy (born 24 September 1970 in Helsinki, Finland) is a Finnish television writer, screenwriter and film producer. He has been a political activist on the left of the political spectrum ( Left Alliance), once standing in elections for the ...

. It stars

Pekka Strang Pekka Kristian Strang (born 23 July 1977) is a Swedish-speaking population of Finland, Finland-Swedish actor and the artistic director of Lilla Teatern in Helsinki, 2005–2014. He grew up in Vaasa on the Finnish west coast. In 1997 he was admitt ...

as Touko Laaksonen, better known as

Tom of Finland Touko Valio Laaksonen (8 May 1920 – 7 November 1991), pseudonym Tom of Finland, was a Finnish artist who made stylized highly masculinized homoerotic art, and influenced late 20th-century gay culture. He has been called the "most influential ...

, a Finnish homoerotic artist. ''Tom of Finland'' premiered on 27 January 2017 at

Gothenburg Film Festival Göteborg Film Festival (GFF), formerly Göteborg International Film Festival (GIFF), known in English as the Gothenburg Film Festival, formerly Gothenburg International Film Festival, is an annual film festival in Gothenburg, Sweden and the larg ...

and was released theatrically in Finland on 24 February 2017. It was selected as the Finnish entry for the

Best Foreign Language Film This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards. Best Actor/Best Actress *See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...

at the

90th Academy Awards The 90th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2017, and took place at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. The ceremony was held on March 4, ...

, but it was not nominated.

Premise

Touko Laaksonen returns home after serving in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. In post-war

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

, he makes a name for himself with his

homoerotic Homoeroticism is sexual attraction between members of the same sex, either male–male or female–female. The concept differs from the concept of homosexuality: it refers specifically to the desire itself, which can be temporary, whereas "homose ...

drawings of muscular men. Before finding fame, he finds challenges from his sister and Finnish society due to his art.

Cast

as Touko Laaksonen Tom of Finland *

Lauri Tilkanen Lauri Tilkanen (born 6 November 1987) is a Finnish actor. He has appeared on television and in films such as ''Skavabölen pojat'' (2009), '' Paha perhe'' (2010), '' Hiljaisuus'' (2011), '' Härmä'' (2012) and ''Juoppohullun päiväkirja'' (2012). ...

as Veli (Nipa) *

Jessica Grabowsky Jessica Grabowsky (born 8 April 1980) is a Finnish actress. She was nominated for the Jussi Award in the category of Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance in the 2011 film ''Missä kuljimme kerran''. In 2014, she was nominated a se ...

as Kaija Laaksonen * as Alijoki * Seumas Sargent as Doug *

Jakob Oftebro Jakob Hoff Oftebro (born 12 January 1986) is a Norwegian actor. He has appeared in more than twenty films since 2004 including Hamilton and ''Kon-Tiki'', which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 85th Academ ...

as Jack * Troy T. Scott as Tom's man *

Werner Daehn Werner Daehn (born 14 October 1967) is a German actor, who has worked with Vin Diesel and Samuel L. Jackson in '' XXX'', with Jason Priestley in ''Colditz'' an ITV1 2005 miniseries, with Bill Pullman in '' Revelations'' and with Steven Seagal in ...

as Müller *

Þorsteinn Bachmann Þorsteinn Bachmann (born 25 October 1965) is an Icelandic actor. He is known for his role as Móri in ''Life in a Fishbowl''. In 2015 he won an Edda Award for that same role. Early life Þorsteinn grew up in the Fossvogur area of Reykjavík, ...

as editor of the

Physique Pictorial ''Physique Pictorial'' is an American magazine, one of the leading beefcake magazines of the mid-20th century. During its run from 1951 to 1990 as a quarterly publication, it exemplified the use of bodybuilding culture and classical art figure pos ...

Office

Reception

Awards

At the 2016 Finnish Film Affair (a "work-in-progress forum" running alongside the

Helsinki International Film Festival The Helsinki International Film Festival – Love & Anarchy ( fi, Rakkautta & Anarkiaa) is a non-competitive film festival held since 1988 in Helsinki, Finland, yearly in September. The festival promotes the artistry of filmmaking, the inventive, vi ...

), ''Tom of Finland'' shared the Best Pitch prize, splitting the award money with '' Post Punk Disorder''. At the 2017

Göteborg Film Festival Göteborg Film Festival (GFF), formerly Göteborg International Film Festival (GIFF), known in English as the Gothenburg Film Festival, formerly Gothenburg International Film Festival, is an annual film festival in Gothenburg, Sweden and the larg ...

, the film won the Fipresci Award.

Critical reception

On review aggregator website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film has an approval rating of 83% based on 70 reviews, with an average rating of 6.9/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "''Tom of Finland'' honors its subject with an empathetic, even-handed, and above all entertaining look at the pioneering art he produced from private turmoil." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 56 out of 100 based on 13 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

References

External links

* * * * {{Dome Karukoski 2017 films 2017 biographical drama films 2017 LGBT-related films 2010s English-language films 2010s Finnish-language films American biographical drama films American LGBT-related films Biographical films about artists Biographical films about LGBT people Cultural depictions of cartoonists Danish biographical drama films Danish LGBT-related films English-language Finnish films Films about comics Films directed by Dome Karukoski Films scored by Hildur Guðnadóttir Films set in the 1940s Films set in the 1950s Films set in Helsinki Films shot in Finland Finnish biographical drama films Finnish LGBT-related films Gay-related films German biographical drama films German LGBT-related films LGBT-related drama films Swedish biographical drama films Swedish LGBT-related films 2010s American films 2010s German films 2010s Swedish films