It’s scarce at Lilja’s home, her husband fills out support forms from morning to night, and the teenage children also need theirs. Fia’s family does not hesitate to be a little “innovative” as they say – to stretch the letter of the law a little. After all, it’s always the little person who gets in the way.
It is here that temptation enters the scene in the form of an aged client. Or well, old age is perhaps the wrong word. The Monday shift at Martin, 94, who lives alone, starts as usual with him getting help to go to the toilet, but then things go wrong. It is not a sluggish stomach that makes him not answer the home care team’s questions about whether he is done. No, he has fallen and killed himself.
It is now that Irish comedian Marie Jones, known for the hit Stones in the Pocket, among other things, turns up the black humor and takes the moral temperature of the modern lady with the lamp duo with proper shoes.
Fate’s lot
Monday is actually pension payment day, wouldn’t Martin have wanted his carers to take advantage of his 480 euros instead of seeing them end up in the deep pockets of the Social Insurance Institution of Finland? Surely it cannot be more than right that those who have taken care of the old man so well, despite a tight work schedule and a salary of 12 euros an hour, get the money?
Add a tip coupon from the weekend’s trotting races and the fateful castle clearly falls in Fia’s and the first slightly reluctant, petty Lilja’s favor.
Pia Runnakko is priceless in the role of a genuine working girl; Quick thinking with well-lubricated mouth leather and a little lie on the line if needed. Here is a woman who thinks it is the right – or perhaps even the obligation – of the poor to earn a little extra if the chance is offered. Why should only the rich and powerful be allowed to exploit the loopholes of the law and make money from it?
The ninety-plus-year-old has neither family nor acquaintances, which is also emphasized by the set design, which comes with all the right markers. The brown checkered Reino slippers and the analogue scale under the bed, the cross-stitch board and the rya rug above the bed, the empty Fruit Drops tin can reminiscent of the cruises to Sweden in the eighties, everything testifies to the fact that this is a lonely and aged man’s home.
Personal gain
The problem is called the body on the bathroom floor, the body with a bruise on the forehead can be added. We have all seen our fair share of police comics, the play’s Lilja and Fia also noticeably, and all the thoughts of the police, pathologist and postmortem examination put them in complete panic.
Somewhat surprisingly, it is the turntable and vinyls with Frank Sinatra’s earrings that make the home caregivers choose self-interest, that is, Barcelona, over diaper changes and beta-blockers. Linda Zilliacus’ Lily is perhaps a little too polished to be really convincing as a poor home caregiver, but on the other hand, the nursing jargon and the accurate dialogue are as they should be.
The running time of just over an hour is perfect for a sharp-edged comedy like Fly me to the moon. In Joakim Groth’s tight direction, values are weighed against greed in a witty way, and in the end, it’s not just morality that goes up in smoke.