Nousukausi, a.k.a. Upswing, is a 2003

2003 in film

The year 2003 in film involved some significant events. Releases of sequels took place with movies like The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, Pokémon Heroes, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines,...

 Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 black comedy

Black comedy

A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...

 film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

. It is directed by Johanna Vuoksenmaa

Johanna Vuoksenmaa

Johanna Vuoksenmaa is a Finnish television and film director.Vuoksenmaa is in a relationship with film and television scriptwriter Mika Ripatti.-Filmography:* Toinen jalka haudasta...

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Story overview

A rich, young couple desires an unusual, cutting-edge vacation and seek the help of a travel agent from Invisible Hand Tours. The couple begin their vacation as unemployed slum-dwellers while their manipulative travel agent makes off with everything they own. When the couple realizes they have been duped, they race to track down the con as their lives spiral out of control.

Plot

A dissatisfied yuppie

Yuppie

Yuppie is a term that refers to a member of the upper middle class or upper class in their 20s or 30s. It first came into use in the early-1980s and largely faded from American popular culture in the late-1980s, due to the 1987 stock market crash and the early 1990s recession...

 couple in the IT

Information technology

Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...

 business, with no kids and a fancy house in a prestige neighbourhood, have a few weeks off before new career challenges. Envious about their friends' exotic holiday destinations, they meet a travel agent at a party, offering them the ultimate experience: a one month vacation under a false identity in Jakomäki

Jakomäki

Jakomäki is a quarter, part of Suurmetsä neighbourhood in Helsinki, Finland.It has an area of 1,92 km2 and a population of 5,481 ....

, a suburban block of flats in Helsinki

Helsinki

Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

. Part of the deal is that their credit cards, house, passports, keys and custom automobile are all traded in for a run-down house and four envelopes each with a weekly cash allowance. Acting as an unemployed couple, their street credibility is often questioned by their new neighbours who are more at home with the ways of the concrete jungle. However, they discover after the first week that the second envelope is empty and that the travel agency where they purchase their vacation does not exist.