In the books, Juha is a somewhat loveable anti-hero. A person who does bad things (alcoholic, violent, ill-tempered, neglecting the law),but you still get the feeling that he has a good heart and good intentions, and he's witty and funny overall. You cheer for him and you hope that he'll have a happy ending, and that he learns from his mistakes and you know that he'll become a better person.

The movie Juha is just miserable and poignant. There's nothing fun about him, nothing charming. You don't believe anything good will come his way for a second. Just depressing.

The books are fun, the movie makes you feel bad. They completely missed the point and failed miserably.

Both the novels and the movie use an unreliable narrator. Difference is that book-Juha is that cooler older brother who tells fun stories about his adventures and you don't even really question if it really happened, you just love hearing the stories. Movie-Juha is that old drunken uncle who always tells the same stuff and you just know it's bs.

I have read all the novels and thus had some expectations from the movie. While there were some funny and true to the novels moments, the tragedy severely overcame the comedy, which was not true to the novels. The atmosphere was completely reversed from the books and really made the movie unenjoyable.

While adjusting to their own story, the script is probably too bizarre to be funny for regular viewers. They simply do not explain enough to really be able to make a similar connection as with the novels. For someone who has not read the books the movie will most likely be offending as the characters are really not explained during the movie.

If you really want to enjoy the story, I can only recommend the books. Otherwise this movie was not the worst thing I've seen. The screenplay was good, the casting was OK, though somewhat twisted, and they made a complete script. So I will still give 4/10 overall.