Tom of Finland (film)

Tom of Finland is a 2017 biographical drama film directed by Dome Karukoski and written by Aleksi Bardy. It stars Pekka Strang as Touko Laaksonen, better known as Tom of Finland, a Finnish homoerotic artist.

Tom of Finland premiered on 27 January 2017 at Gothenburg Film Festival and was released theatrically in Finland on 24 February 2017. It was selected as the Finnish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.

Premise
Touko Laaksonen returns home after serving in World War II. In post-war Helsinki, he makes a name for himself with his homoerotic drawings of muscular men. Before finding fame, he finds challenges from his sister and Finnish society due to his art.

Cast

 * Pekka Strang as Touko Laaksonen a.k.a. Tom of Finland
 * Lauri Tilkanen as Veli (Nipa)
 * Jessica Grabowsky as Kaija Laaksonen
 * Taisto Oksanen as Alijoki
 * Seumas Sargent as Doug
 * Jakob Oftebro as Jack
 * Troy T. Scott as Tom's man
 * Werner Daehn as Müller
 * Þorsteinn Bachmann as editor of the Physique Pictorial Office

Awards
At the 2016 Finnish Film Affair (a "work-in-progress forum" running alongside the Helsinki International Film Festival), Tom of Finland shared the Best Pitch prize, splitting the award money with Post Punk Disorder.

At the 2017 Göteborg Film Festival, the film won the Fipresci Award.

Critical reception
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 83% based on 70 reviews, with an average rating of 6.9/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Tom of Finland honors its subject with an empathetic, even-handed, and above all entertaining look at the pioneering art he produced from private turmoil." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 56 out of 100 based on 13 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".