Stormskerry Maja

Tiina Lymi's 2024 Finnish film is set in the Swedish-speaking Åland archipelago and is adapted from Anni Blomqvist's series of novels. Maja settles with her husband Janne on a remote island, where surviving in the nineteenth century is not a day's work but a constant reckoning. The film's interest is in the woman's turn from helper to partner within that order. After blows from the sea, from illness and from war, Maja becomes the one who decides, and the story spreads that change across forty years. Amanda Jansson carries the ageing without falling into imitation. The landscape photography is strong. Its length and episodic structure may weigh on some viewers. Who it's for: viewers who like Nordic period drama and literary adaptations. Who it's not for: anyone wanting a short narrative, or troubled by the density of scenes of death, childbirth and loss.