Boxing movies aren’t always remembered for their romance, but that’s the defining element of The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki, a dramatization of the 1962 showdown between the Finnish boxer of the title (Jarkko Lahti) and visiting American champion Davey Moore (John Bosco Jr.). While Mäki’s manager (Eero Milonoff) is promoting the fight as if it were the Rumble in the Arctic Circle, Mäki sees it as just another fight—and in fact is more committed to the new relationship he’s begun with a woman he meets at a wedding (Oona Airola). Lahti and Airola are wonderful together, not going for romantic cliches but instead embodying two happy people who simply, deeply enjoy each other’s presence. Director Juho Kuosmanen, meanwhile, employs archival, black-and-white cinematography to heighten the romanticism, as well as little dollops of humor that lighten what could have been a plodding, nationalistic biopic.
