Leijonasydän

In reply to this post on IDMb.

I published the text of the reply here first as a matter of packup, because IMDb threads tend to be deleted over time.

The poster wrote that he'd never seen "so much politically correct propaganda placed into one movie"

The narration of the film shows that Harri was not given enough time to progress. We see Teppo trying to do so in his own pace, given that he knows Harri best; but then arrives Salif, very well disguising his own insecurities (perhaps the reason why Sari and Salif broke up in the first place), who decides to dominate over Teppo and Harri, and then uses multiple occasions to hurt Harri's feelings. Harri retaliates in only the best way he knows, much to his own detriment. But he doesn't seem to care anymore, because he needs to drive a point across, and because in the previous scene Teppo had just disowned Harri. And that was because Teppo felt that Harri was unable improve no matter the effort exercized by Teppo.

I suppose if Teppo had not outright disowned Harri, or had Harri contained himself the previous day and night, then perhaps there would have been a possibility for Harri to care just enough to contain himself so as not to play with dangerous toys. Wishful thinking.

That particular scene, where Salif has this need to boss over Teppo and Harri, suggests reverse racism.

The film shows a rather complex dynamic between the characters, with neither Salif nor Harri giving enough ground to compromise for the sake of Teppo's stepson. It's as if Salif's and Harri's interchange is bound from the outset to break out from beyond Teppo's efforts to control the situation.

I can't speak for Finland, because I am not a Finn (I'm from Estonia). The movie shows that racism is not overt there, but that it's out of plain sight and hidden, which is more insidious.

With these actors (Franzén, Pääkkönen, Laura Birn), I would have loved a more open-ended ending for the film, at least in some aspects, given that there are subjects with which it's impossible to afford letting someone think out or justify a destructive idea, words, or action, for it might turn against themselves.