Review: Meidän poika

Our son is Lampela’s tough novelty

Writer-director Pasi Lampela can be expected to delve into tough topics.

Geneva (2007) revelled in the ruins of the previous boom with its story of the suddenly rich and the suddenly impoverished, while The Abyss (2009) showed a cheerful family whose dark secret was human trafficking.


Our son , on the other hand, walks around with a bomb in his backpack. It premiered at the beginning of September on the Small Stage of the Helsinki City Theatre.

Myyrmanni and Breivik are born from somewhere



Our son is shown in a great flashback. The detective (Rauno Ahonen) and his mother (Merja Larivaara) both sense that something serious may be happening.

Larivaara makes a subtle and apt interpretation of a single mother who is confused by the anxiety of her young son.

The closest you get to the boy’s secret is a confidant (Elina Hietala).
However, our son (Hannes Suominen) does not tell us the key information, which is why anxiety never turns into expansion. The boy is unable to accept help, and then it is already too late.

Suominen expresses the anxiety of a bullied and lonely boy in a touching way.
Together with another schoolmate (Markus Riuttu), Hietala makes a fresh and fierce interpretation of today’s young people.

Lampela’s novelty shows that from somewhere – and from a very good starting point – these shooters, bombers and breiviks are coming. The signs are visible, but they are not easy to interpret correctly.