Ville Virtanen Movies

Upon discovering that her husband is having an affair, a Helsinki gynecologist attempts to gather more knowledge about her rival and, in the process, becomes hopelessly entangled in the other woman's life - partially on purpose but primarily out of happenstance. Saara is pretty, elegant, liberal, and friendly to a fault. Yet while surface appearances would suggest that Saara is something of an open book, the truth is that lately no one has looked deeper enough to notice otherwise. Driven by jealousy to find out why her husband Leo has grown distant as of late, the sleuthing wife soon discovers that her spouse has recently entered into an affair with a young student and part-time martial arts instructor named Tulli. Her desire to learn more about Tulli growing with each passing hour, Saara eventually signs up as a student in one of the woman's self-defense classes. Eventually, Saara integrates herself into Tulli's life by blending fact and fiction to create a new persona. While Saara's crafty bid to find out more about Tulli without revealing her true identity is indeed successful, her deceptions start to snowball after she creates a fictitious lover in order to mislead her husband. The satisfaction of turning the tables on her husband gradually begins to dissipate, however, when the complex web of deceit becomes too unwieldy to maintain, plunging everyone involved into a hopeless cycle of despair and revenge. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Finnish television director Johanna Vuoksenmaa directs the fish-out-of-water comedy Nousukausi (Upswing). Upwardly mobile couple Janne (Petteri Summanen) and Katri (Tiina Lymi) are jealous of their friends who are going on expensive, exotic vacations. In order to impress them, the couple purchases a role-playing summer vacation package that consists of living in a lower-class housing project. When it comes time to go back to their affluent lifestyle, they realize they've been conned out of their money and possessions. Upswing was shown at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival market. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi

In this melodrama, Marten, Ursula and Harri have gotten themselves into a life of drug-peddling, but now they want to get out of it. Like all such situations, it proves to be more difficult than just stating one's intentions. It's not clear that these three indecisive people are really up to the challenge they have posed for themselves. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi