The Matriarch (2008)

Run Time - 94 min.  |   Countries - Finland  |   MPAA Rating - G
  • AllMovie Rating
  • User Ratings (0)
  • Your Rating

Share on

Synopsis by Mark Deming

One headstrong woman tries to keep her oddball family from heading off the rails in this bizarre comedy. Martta (Sanna-Kaisa Palo) and Otto (Heikki Kinnunen) are a pair of traveling tailors who claim to be bastard descendents of the Romanovs and wander from town to town seeking work, accompanied by their three half-witted adult sons, Hippo (Tuomas Uusitalo), Repe (Tatu Siivonen) and Ventti (Toni Wahlstrom). 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 unexpectedly dies 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 Kaspar (Samuli Vauramo), who becomes the family's sidekick in their travels. Despite Kaspar's inability to speak, he attracts a new member of the gang, an attractive young woman named Lara (Jenni Banerjee), but the balance of the family is thrown for a loop when a long-lost fourth brother, Laszlo (Peter Franzen), suddenly re-emerges and tries to wrest control of the business away from his mom. Lieksa! (aka The Matriarch) received it premiere at the 2008 Midnight Sun Film Festival, held in Finland.