Bryant’s review published on Letterboxd:
I’m a fan of the Moomins, but this goes way beyond that. Alma Pöysti Is vibrant, in joy and in sorrow. It’s about Jansson’s life, what it’s like to disappoint family, class tensions, art versus craft, and I guess really about a genius finding her path. There’s quite a bit packed into this one.
I keep coming back to Pöysti’s performance, because she has to carry all that. There’s an exchange, very early on, about a self-portrait:
“Do you think I’m the rock, the fire, or the storm?”
“You’re all three of them, aren’t you?”
That’s a lot of pressure to put on an actress before we’ve seen her be any of those things. She pulls it off.