Nora

As a particularly clear-headed and independent woman, forty-year-old Nora has remained single throughout her life. So far, her love affair with her career has kept her from being interested in establishing a family, and her attachment to her just recently deceased mother has also kept many suitors at bay. But now, during one of her business trips, Nora suddenly meets a man who awakens this forgotten longing and releases the teenager within her who never before had the chance to properly fall in love, head over heels. There is just one major problem, namely that the man is already married. And his wife is not only a total opposite of Nora, but also turns out to be Nora’s former school friend from twenty years ago. She is now a devoted housewife, whose life revolves around decorating the home and looking after their children — so much so that she has driven even her husband to total boredom with her daily chores. After meeting the sharp, business oriented Nora, and still oblivious to the the affair with her husband, the wife herself realises the repetitive dullness of her life and begins to open up to Nora about her needs, hopes and desires, as well as her wish to save her marriage. Once the initial romantic feelings between Nora and the husband begin to quiet down, Nora is faced with a serious problem. On the one hand, she is taken over by her newly found need for love, affection, a family and a child. On the other hand, there is her honour to consider — how could she take away from her school friend the only safeguard that she has in this world? Meanwhile, the man battles with similar questions. How could he leave his uneducated wife alone with their two young sons? Yet, it would at this point be equally difficult to leave Nora. The result is a stalemate in which everyone wants what the others have. In the end, it is the man who resolves the situation, realising that he has been living in a fantasy, and that he needs to leave in order to find out who he really is. The ending cleverly mirrors and updates that of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, whose protagonist also shares her name with Kilpinen’s Nora.