.png){kind=logo}
The king is dead. Long live the “King of Fucking Everything”.
Finnish director and screenwriter Tiina Lymi will continue her hit show “Queen of Fucking Everything” in an upcoming feature film dedicated to one of its side characters.
“I already have a script,” she told Variety at Goteborg, where “Queen” is nominated for the Nordic Series Script Award. Lymi wrote it with Juha Lehtola of East Film.
“It’s not at all what people might expect. It’s about taking responsibility for your own actions and about guilt. It’s about a man who vanished. When a woman is insecure, she hurts only herself – a man in the same position hurts everybody around him. He hasn’t grown up and he’s obviously not really a ‘King of Fucking Everything’. Once again, it’s an ironic title,” she said.
“Making this film is interesting and I can only do things that interest me. I have a very personal relationship with the ‘guy who leaves’. I’ve always wondered: What the hell? How can people do that, how can they leave their children? My father disappeared, and I always wondered what happened to him. My mother once said: ‘He’s not bad. He’s just weak’.” That sentence has bothered me for, like, 40 years.”
Apart from the film, a second season of “Queen” – about a real estate agent Linda who turns to crime after her husband suddenly disappears, leaving her drowning in debt – is also moving forward. The show recently won five Golden Venla awards in its native Finland, including best drama series and best screenplay and director for Lymi.
“I don’t have an explanation for why people seem to love the show, but the main thing is that I never do something that already exists. Also, all the characters are relatable, even though they are crazy and terrible. Nobody is just good or bad. Everyone is both, like we all are.”
She added: “When we look at Instagram and see other people’s gorgeous lives, we feel so small. ‘I love my hobby, I love my family, I have so many friends.’ And you are at home, alone and feeling like shit. But if you look behind these pictures, it’s not the truth. There’s a lot going on behind the scenes.”
Lymi didn’t want to create a show that pretends to be something it’s not. “It’s not a Finnish series trying to be American, or another Nordic something,” she said. Nordic Noir is still the dominant genre in the region. “It’s a hybrid of drama with some thriller elements and pitch-black humor. I had a clear vision and followed it.”
Linda – played by Laura Malmivaara – isn’t the only fascinating female character Lymi has recently delivered, with her box-office smash “Stormskerry Maja,” set in the 19th century, further cementing her transition from acting to directing.
“As a writer and director, I don’t just write about women: I write about people. But, as women, we do carry a lot of weight. Even the adjectives used to describe women are totally different. If a man is bossy, he’s ‘determined.’ A woman is a ‘difficult’ bitch,” she stated.
“We are being observed, and we are being judged. Especially if you succeed – then you’re a witch. And witches get burned.”
Interestingly enough, Lymi will soon move on to another TV series that she wrote, under working title “The Punisher,” and another female character.
“She’s in her fifties, a lovely person who gives everything to others and doesn’t take anything for herself. And then… she stops doing it. There will be blood,” teased Lymi.
“She has a small, beautiful world. It all happens in the countryside. She’s a makeup artist and a hairdresser who dreams of becoming a nail artist. She wants to do beautiful nails adorned with palm trees and diamonds. But there’s a bad man in the village who destroys everything. And she stops being nice.”
Still, Lymi wouldn’t say that rage is always the answer.
“I do not wish to be aggressive, but my characters are, for some reason,” she laughed. “Except for Maja. She refuses to hate anyone and I admire her very much. She’s my kind of heroine.”
“As women, especially if you’re a boss, you have two options: You can be a silly girl or a mother. We don’t wear corsets anymore, but we sort of do. We operate within a very narrow space.”
“In the Nordic countries, we have laws that say that everybody is equal, women should be paid as much as men, and you can’t beat your wife. But it’s a very small corner of the world and we haven’t had those laws for long. If we don’t talk about it, they can vanish again.”
English (US) ·