The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki review – delightful, mysterious Finnish comedy

Here is a treat and a delight: this lovely film from Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen is a gentle, shrewd, somehow mysterious love story, based on real life, beautifully photographed in luminous black-and-white and drawing inspiration from Scorsese and Truffaut. It is inspired by the Finnish boxer Olli Mäki, who electrified Finland’s boxing fans in 1962 by getting a shot at the world featherweight title, fighting on home turf against visiting American star Davey Moore. It is to be the greatest day of his life – but not for the reasons he might once have thought.

The movie has Jarkko Lahti playing the intense, wiry Olli, who finds that as the big fight approaches, he has fallen in love with a beautiful young schoolteacher, Raija (Oona Airola) – to the horror of his tightly wound trainer and manager, Elis, played by Eero Milonoff, who occasionally resembles a young Harrison Ford. Elis’s own marriage appears to be crumbling, and he is aghast, for complex reasons, at the distractions of love, which might mess with Olli’s focus. Like Jake La Motta, Olli has a habit of zoning out in public occasions at the thought of his love, and he sometimes looks like a blond Antoine Doinel, taking 400 blows outside the ring. It is a film of immense humanity and charm: the very best kind of date movie.