Céline Roustan
With his last short, F**king Bunnies, centered around a Satan-worshipping sex-cult, we welcome Teemu Niukkanen back to S/W with another delightfully dark comedy that relies on the awkwardness of the situation… my favorite kind! Miscommunication and misunderstanding are at the core of Onko sulla nälkä? (Are You Hungry?) and with two very likeable protagonists, Niukkanen makes it impossible not to enjoy every single moment of this story about a misguided single mother desperately trying her best!
“We wanted to tell a story about failing in parental love”
Created for a script competition (by the Finnish Film Foundation and the Finnish National Broadcasting Company) focused on the theme “One Night Stand”, screenwriter Antti Toivonen, who also wrote F**king Bunnies, came up with the idea of a worried parent who would set their kid up on an online dating app…and the rest is history.
With what he calls the “neverending circle of helplessness” (parenthood) as the main theme, Niukkanen and Toivonen decided they wanted to tackle their subject, once again, through a darkly-comedic lens. “Thematically we wanted to tell a story about failing in parental love, as it felt like a great starting point for both tragedy and comedy. Especially failing at being a perfect mom, as it’s really sad and funny at the same time. Dads are expected to fail anyway, haha.”
His Mother’s assumptions about his needs lead Tomi into a series of unusual situations.
Inspired by both his personal experience as a son and as a father, Are You Hungry? captures the maternal instinct, and how far it can push a mother, through a compelling yet hilarious perspective. As far as the comedy in his work is concerned, Niukkanen explains that he likes to base his work on “true phenomena and observation” and that “the more painful and difficult the subject is, the better starting point it is for making something extraordinarily fun.”
The fact that it feels so genuine, by being rooted in a very normal situation of a mother and teenage son struggling to communicate, makes the comedy even more successful. Tonally, Niukkanen/Toivonen have clearly mastered the perfect combination of deadpan and absurd comedy in the most mundane situations. Much like F**king Bunnies, Are You Hungry? is a comedy created around a lack of communication and how it can lead one party to spiral and imagine the worst.
Pirjo Lonka, as Tomi’s Mom, perfectly portrays that never-ending parental worry.
In addition to creating a narrative with strong comedic potential, Niukkanen is also fully aware that to enhance the comedy, he can play with the audience’s perception of the story. It is impossible to watch Are You Hungry? without empathizing with Tomi’s mother, but she is so misguided that at the same time how could we not enjoy her struggle? Juxtaposing her increasing worry, with Tomi’s very chill state of mind, even in that weird situation, is a joy to watch – though at times you’ll full-on-cringe when doing so.
Ahead of its online premiere as a Vimeo Staff Pick, Are You Hungry had quite the festival career, with a premiere at the 2019 edition of TIFF, followed by notable stops at Sundance and ShortFest. Niukkanen is about to start writing his new short, while also developing his feature debut, once again written by Toivonen. It should come as no surprise that both are comedies!