Directed by Zaida Bergroth
Written by Eeva Putro & Jarno Elonen
Starring Alma Pöysti, Krista Kosonen, and Shanti Roney
Running time: 1 hour and 43 minutes
In theaters June 3

by Ian Hrabe, Staff Writer

When I think of Finland I think of three things: the terrific deadpan cinema of Aki Kaurismäki, the exceptional school system that puts the US to shame, and Moomin comic strips. I have had four of Drawn & Quarterly’s lovely volumes of the comic strips on my bookshelf for years, and as wonderful as those books are, watching Tove--a biopic of Moomin creator Tove Jansson--I realized I’d never so much as read Jansson’s Wikipedia page. In my head Tove Jansson was a genial matron type, drawing out these whimsical children’s stories about these hippo-esque creatures and their adventures. You can imagine my surprise watching this film and learning that Jansson was a bisexual free spirit in a post-World War II Finland that was tolerant of neither of those things. 

Tove opens in a bomb shelter at the tail end of World War II as the Soviets bomb Nazi-aligned Finland. Tove Jansson (Alma Pöysti) emerges to walk along the streets of bombed out Helsinki and formally begin her career as a Serious Artist. She lives in the shadow of her famous sculptor father, who insists she stop wasting her time with her little illustrations of fantastical creatures and focus on painting. Jansson’s creative dilemma of painting vs illustration is set against the backdrop of her romantic entanglements with socialist newspaper man Atos (Shanti Roney), who runs Jansson’s comic strips, and bohemian socialite Vivica (Krista Kosonen) who commissions her to illustrate an invitation for her father’s birthday party and sparks Jansson’s sexual awakening.

Moomin is as big as in Scandanavia as Peanuts is in the United States and Tintin is in Europe, and yet I can’t imagine that biopics of Charles Shultz and Hergé would feature two passionate sex scenes in the first half hour. Tove fully commits to not presenting a sanitized version of Jansson’s life. It’s a breath of fresh air considering that many biopics are keen to smooth down the rough edges. Tove is raw, complicated, and emotionally messy. Alma Pöysti’s portrayal of Jansson is naturalistic and nuanced, and a lot of the film’s emotional heavy lifting is carried out by her ability to wordlessly convey the entire mood of a scene with just a look on her face. 

Tove is not a story of an artist finding her calling and turning it into an extraordinary career that creates work that touches the hearts of millions around the world. It’s a story of an artist who considers herself a failure because she can’t make it as a Serious Artist and is reduced to selling comics to make ends meet. Jansson eventually sees the magic she has created when her lover Vivica stages a Moomin play, but so much of the film is her learning to accept her career as an illustrator of comic strips. 

From our modern world where Moomin is internationally beloved, has spawned countless TV shows and movies, has its own theme park, and is a brand that rakes in 700 million EUR a year, it seems like it would be easy for the viewer to feel frustrated at Jansson’s unwillingness to fully commit to Moomin. However, director Zaida Bergroth does an excellent job keeping us grounded in Tove’s world, and the result is a fully fleshed out portrait of an artist at a crossroads. Biopics are so often a sort of cinematic paint-by-numbers and they often sacrifice emotional resonance with making sure they hit every beat of an artist’s life (“And that’s where Johnny Cash wrote “Walk the Line,” etc). Tove eschews depicting Moomin trivia to give us a look at the life of the woman who created something incredibly special, but never let it become her whole life. It’s a refreshing take on the biopic format, and absolutely worth seeking out whether you are a fan of Moomin or are uninitiated to that wonderful and fantastical world.