Synopsis
Touko Laaksonen, a decorated officer, returns home after a harrowing and heroic experience serving his country in World War II, but life in Finland during peacetime proves equally distressing. He finds peace-time Helsinki rampant with persecution of the homosexual and men around him even being pressured to marry women and have children. Touko finds refuge in his liberating art, specialising in homoerotic drawings of muscular men, free of inhibitions. His work – made famous by his signature ‘Tom of Finland’ – became the emblem of a generation of men and fanned the flames of a gay revolution.
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Cast
- Pekka StrangTouko Laaksonen / Tom of Finland
- Lauri TilkanenVeli
- Jessica GrabowskyKaija
- Taisto OksanenAlijoki
- Seumas F. SargentDoug
- Jakob OftebroJack
- Niklas HognerKake
- Werner DaehnMüller
- Christian SandströmKari
- Martin BahneGabriel
Recommendations
- 80
Total Film
If the imagery is less racy than TOF fans may be used to, Pekka Strang’s quiet turn as Laaksonen has a simmering power. - 75
San Francisco Chronicle
A good, strong movie, but never threatens to be great. One salivates at the adventurous directions the film could have explored. - 60
Empire
Having taken such pains to establish Tom’s Finnish background and its attendant dangers, Karukoski hurtles through the sketchy American section without exploring any of its crucial issues in sufficient depth. - 60
The Telegraph
An interesting film rather than an engrossing one, and it’s hard not to wish it was a little more energised by its subject’s enduringly transgressive spirit. - 60
CineVue
Tom of Finland is imbued with playfulness but not the cutting edge, and bravery, of its eponymous leading man. - 58
The Playlist
While often hamstrung by genre conventions, particularly in the picture’s first half, Tom of Finland is a passable entry into the LGBT film canon and largely successful in selling the subcultural relevance of the eponymous artist’s beefcake drawings. - 50
RogerEbert.com
Its lively finale is heartening, given the patience that Laaksonen was obliged to exercise before he could live his life out in the open. But the insights of the movie are too scant for much of a real impression to take hold of the viewer. - 50
Village Voice
The film is jammed with incident and detail but there’s little flow to the storytelling.
