Written by Zoe Crombie

Though ostensibly about anyone falling in love with some quirky bumps in the road, romcoms as a genre tend to focus on the young and beautiful. You only have to look at this year’s entries into the mode to see this, from Jennifer Lawrence’s No Hard Feelings to the upcoming Anyone But You with fresh faced stars Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell. But many of the best, from Harold and Maude to As Good As It Gets, feature people who represent a less glamourous but more poignant side of life, such as one of this year’s sweetest releases Fallen Leaves.

The Finnish entry for the upcoming Academy Awards’ Best International Feature, Fallen Leaves is the twentieth feature film of acclaimed director Aki Kaurismäki, and part of the filmmaker’s Proletariat series. Telling the story of a zero hour supermarket worker falling in love with an alcoholic who understands her loneliness, this is an empathetic release that carefully balances absurd comedy with an optimistic centre, never going too far in one direction with its tone. For a film that takes place in the darker corners of Helsinki, it never loses sight of the light.

If you’re looking for an uplifting winter warmer that doesn’t have the schmaltz and polish of Hollywood’s output, Fallen Leaves is yet another fantastic work from one of Finland’s greatest directors.