The Matriarch

2007 Finnish film

Peter Franzén
Sanna-Kaisa Palo
Samuli Vauramo
Jenni Banerjee
Heikki Kinnunen

CinematographyJan NymanEdited byMarkku PölönenMusic byVesa Mäkinen

Release date

14 September 2007

Running time

90 minCountryFinlandLanguageFinnishBudget€1,400,000Box office€435,981

The Matriarch (Finnish: Lieksa!) is a 2007 Finnish comedy-drama film written, directed and edited by Markku Pölönen and produced by the Pölönen-owned film production company Suomen Filmiteollisuus.

Plot

Martta (Sanna-Kaisa Palo) and Otto (Heikki Kinnunen) are a pair of traveling tailors who claim to be bastard descendants of the Romanovs and wander from town to town in Finland seeking work, accompanied by their two half-witted adult sons, Hippo (Tuomas Uusitalo), Repe (Tatu Siivonen) and equally silly son-in-law Ventti (Toni Wahlström). The family occasionally turns to crime when they can't quite make ends meet, and the boys begin turning to violence with greater frequency when Otto weakens and Martta becomes the head of the family business. Their fortunes take an unexpected turn when the brothers assault and abduct a man they call Kasper (Samuli Vauramo), who becomes the family's sidekick in their travels. Despite Kasper's inability to speak, he attracts Martta's youngest daughter, an attractive young woman named Lara (Jenni Banerjee), but the family is in disarray when a long-lost half-brother, Laszlo (Peter Franzén), suddenly re-emerges and tries to wrest control of the clan away from his mother.