Nousukausi

Nousukausi, a.k.a. Upswing, is a 2003 Finland black comedy film. It is directed by Johanna Vuoksenmaa.

Story overview

A well-to-do, young professional urban 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 couple in the IT business, with no kids and a fancy house in a prestige neighbourhood, have a few weeks off before the husbands's new career challenges. Envious about their friends' exotic holiday destinations, the husband meets a travel agent at a party, offering a the ultimate experience: a one month vacation under a false identity in Jakomäki, a suburban block of flats in Helsinki. Part of the deal is that their credit cards, housekeys, phones, passports, and custom automobile are all traded in for a run-down council-housing apartment and four envelopes each with a weekly cash, equal to a standart unemployment 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 purchased their extreme-vacation, does not exist.