Rating: NR | Runtime: 7 minutes | Release Date: 2013 (Finland)
Studio: Yleisradio
Director(s): Selma Vilhunen
Writer(s): Kirsikka Saari
“Were you styling your beard?”
You’ve probably heard these words before: Pitääkö mun kaikki hoitaa? [Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?]. It might have been your wife, girlfriend, or mother (or the male equivalents despite it being a generalization stereotypically placed upon the fairer sex) and I’m sure they were correctly using those frustrated sentiments more often than not. But while building a seven-minute short around that phrase would be funny in any context if only for the incredulity of whoever utters it, writer Kirsikka Saari and director Selma Vilhunen take it one step further. You see, while Sini Ketonen (Joanna Haartti) may say the words without a shred of patience, she is actually the one responsible for everything that goes wrong.
The film begins in hilarious fashion as Sini and her husband Jokke (Santtu Karvonen) get startled half awake by the alarm. Rather than coherently shut it off, though, she asks him to pass the clock to her, speaks into it like a telephone, and goes back to sleep. It’s no surprise then that she wakes in a panic to realize they are late for a wedding. What follows is a lightning round of morning readiness as Sini runs around the house making sure Jokke wears the correct tie and young Ella (Ranja Omaheimo) and Kerttu (Ella Toivoniemi) find their dresses. As far away from as simple as that sounds, they soon become the weird family running down the street towards church with a plant in hand and the worst luck anyone could ever have.
If you’ve guessed what the punch line will be, you’re right. But only half right since Saari and Vilhunen have one more surprise in store after the obvious reveal. Brilliantly acted in a panicked rush and perfectly art directed for domesticity and all the pratfalls of having way too much on your mind at one time, Do I Have to Take Care of Everything? keeps you as breathless as the characters. The jokes are subtle, absolutely relatable, and authentically rendered by all involved from Karvonen’s calm acceptance of his wife’s demands to both girls cashing in on the cuteness of youthfully misunderstood context. The true star, however, is Haartti never stopping until the last “whoops” finally registers the rest in her mind. It’s so funny because it’s so familiar.