Eastern European film is often memed about, and maybe with good reason. It can feel famously challenging, strange, or "artsy" for the sake of being artsy, particularly without understanding the historical or stylistic context. Some of my personal favorites, such as Czech classics like Věra Chytilová's Daisies or Jaromil Jireš' Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, are really weird and definitely wouldn't conform to a Marvel fan's idea of a film.

Fallen Leaves, the latest from award-winning Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki, is no different, and still ultimately no less rewarding once you get a hang of how to watch and what to expect. 

The famously minimalist director doesn't shift strategy here. The bare-bones plot orbits around two Finns, Ansa and Holappa. Both appear to be in their late 30s and are in dead-end jobs in the coldly urban city of Helsinki. Ansa, a grocery store stocker, is caught taking expired food home with her by a spying boss and summarily fired; Holappa drinks heavily at his backbreaking metalworking job and, after a workplace accident due to his workday drunkenness, is also let go. Encouraged to let loose and go out on the town by respective friends, they end up at a karaoke night together, where their friends unsuccessfully flirt with one another while Ansa and Holappa size each other up. 

From that fateful first meeting, the characters embark on a courtship embattled by lost phone numbers, alcoholism, car accidents, and other ways that life invariably, mundanely, gets in the way. And while their chemistry is palpable, their dating is fairly generic, from grabbing coffee to going to the movies to cooking dinner at home. With a runtime of less than 90 minutes, it ends as quickly and quietly as it begins. 

Such a straightforward concept wouldn't work without buying into the core romance, but Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen really do sell it. Both relative neophytes to the silver screen, with just about two dozen film acting credits between them, they each toe the line between naturalism and cinematic conceits in their performances. Pöysti is sweet and matter-of-fact, with small, awkward smiles dotting careful reservation. But her initial delicate qualities have depth, as reflected when her Ansa takes a heavy manufacturing job, lays down the law in her budding relationship, or is a strong medical caretaker. Similarly, Vatanen is more complex than he lets on, starting the film as a drunk male stereotype before flourishing as his Holappa falls in love, yet still conveying distance and unwillingness to fully commit to a new partner. We've seen these characters before in much less capable hands.

For all the surface-level simplicity of the plot, Kaurismäki keeps things interesting through their surroundings. Supporting characters mostly serve as comic relief to the at-times overly-serious central romance, as Ansa's friend (Nuppu Koivu) complains about men or Holappa's coworker (Janne Hyytiäinen) describes terrible news with a hilariously straight face. Similarly, even more minor characters pepper the story with flavor, like a bizarrely mechanical bartender, an unbelievably talented karaoke singer, a stubborn internet cafe owner, and a very cute adopted dog. Each of them is idiosyncratic in their own way, adding to the odd but entertaining indie-film feel.

Beyond those characters, the world itself is surreal and engaging. We hear radios clips about the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, yet apartment designs seem like they're from the 1950s, and consumer products and technology are never clearly dated. When the couple goes to movies together, it's not clear if the films are current or art-cinema throwback showings; posters outside the building showcase Charlie Chaplin, while the movie the characters watch features Adam Driver. How much of this is simply Finnish culture, and how much is an intentionally out-of-time set of anachronisms designed to reflect a more universal love story, is never specified (in a good way). Keeping set design outside of explicitly 21st-century styles also adds a level of quaint nostalgia which contributes warmth to the cold and brutalist Finnish cityscapes, even further building up the sense of romance. So does the set lighting, which creates bright, shadowless rooms that highlight every glance and smirk.

The film's mix of romance, humor, melancholy, and slice-of-life drama are elevated by an incredible, diverse soundtrack that's just as eclectic and hard to place as the setting. Japanese serenades and Finnish tangoes play alongside accordion bops and classics from Schubert and Tchaikovsky. Each track choice and needle drop warmly fills in long gaps in dialogue, and characterize the characters' feelings for one another better than words could.

So much is beneath the surface, the film's themes — finding meaning in dead-end jobs, falling in love, avoiding isolation or depression, dealing with addiction — are planted in the short runtime and germinate for days later, and one hopes Ansa and Holappa find happiness, in whatever time and space they live.