With its long, static shots of domestic life, “Family Time” resembles the “Paranormal Activity” of deranged vacation movies: There’s a sense of spying on people who don’t realize they’re under a microscope. Of course, Tia Kovu’s debut feature film was professionally written, directed and acted. But her style is so simple, you can sometimes forget you’re watching a fantasy film.
There’s no new ground to be broken in this serial comedy of three generations in one ordinary clan who tolerate each other over Christmas, then glimpse into their separate lives afterward. Yet the deft level of observation — casual, acerbic and passionate at once — makes for a film that adds up to far more than the sum of its seemingly improvised parts. Finland’s Oscar nomination earned it Jussie Awards for Best Picture, Best Director and Screenplay, and while it’s unlikely to be a global hit, it represents Kovu as a promising talent.
The neutrality of Jesse Jalonen’s cinematography is immediately emphasized, as he focuses on the front door opening and closing to let the main characters in — even though we only see the middle parts of them, as if the door itself were somehow the real object of interest. However, we soon realize that this wooden A-frame dwelling is the home of retired grandparents whose descendants have arrived for the annual Christmas celebrations.
There’s a comforting familiarity to their dynamics that includes a fair share of grumbling. When she’s not shying away from trivial matters, mother Ella (Lina Otila) makes a fuss about her husband’s drinking habits. She claims that Lacey (Tom Wentzel) is having a relapse after a period of being “good,” but their daughters recall several past incidents when drinking embarrassed them. Susanna (Ria Kataga) is proud of her new promotion working as lead window designer at a department store; She and her husband, Risto (Jarkko Pajanen), have two elementary-school-age children, sons Kasu (Tomas Talica) and Hela (Eli Pajanen), who is a control freak. (Hella’s nagging complaint is that at one point the annoyed grandfather was removed from the dinner table.) Helena (Elena Knihtila) is a sour-tongued divorcee who shrugs off the idea of dating again. She is looking forward to her newly-adult only child, Simo (Sakari Tobi), moving out on his own, leaving her in blissful isolation.
Divided into two roughly equal parts, the first half is devoted to holiday celebrations that aren’t what they used to be, but also go off the rails a little frequently. Each grandparent deteriorates in his or her way, whether it’s brain fog or an unfortunate incontinence moment. The sisters steal a private moment in the sauna, confessing their frustrations, particularly Susanna’s frustration with an obedient companion whom everyone loves—yet his conversation bores her, and he seems oblivious to her need for romantic attention.
Hela takes it upon herself to reprimand her grandfather for his alcoholism (“Imagine what you and your grandmother could have done with that money”), while gentle giant Simo briefly escapes the underground tensions to spin vehicles in a shopping mall parking lot. When asked if he’s got a girlfriend yet, he notes that his preferences “probably” lie elsewhere…but the seniors here are too self-absorbed to press the issue.
Once the younger family members return home, we get unexpected glimpses into each member’s separate daily lives. Simo moves into his own apartment. Grandpa visits an old friend (Matti Onismaa) from his long seafaring days. Most poignant are two scenes in which Susanna and Resto realize the extent to which their marital connection has broken down. We can see that neither of them is completely wrong, but they certainly irritate each other, to the point of tears and eventual blows.
However, this outburst aside, “Family Time” operates in an almost anthropological way of messy, close-up emotions – these are not characters inclined toward high drama, after all, preferring to avoid conflict through gentle friendliness. Even a final death in the family does not provoke any great drama.
With an all-star cast, Kouvo makes getting lost in an ordinary life compelling in itself, as small details accumulate to form a larger picture that still retains some mystery. These people are hardly mysterious, but the pieces of the puzzle left behind feel as much as gaps as reminders that there is much we don’t know or notice about others, even those who are supposedly closest to us. Not as shy in her austere style as Finnish cinema’s leading figure, Aki Kaurismäki, she reflects his style and some of its gentle sense of humor – but applies it to ends that mimic a kind of matter-of-fact observation. “Family Time” is a compassionate film in a style that feels close to embedded documentary reporting, a sleight-of-hand maneuver impressive for its unshowy effectiveness.