Olle Hulten wakes up drunk on the ferry between Sandefjord and Strömstad. In his car is a gun and a lot of money. Simultaneously the police is chasing a robber whom have hijacked a car and is holding the security guard at gunpoint.
Touko Laaksonen, a decorated officer, returns home after a harrowing and heroic experience serving his country in World War II, but life in Finland during peacetime proves equally distressing. He finds post-war Helsinki rampant with homophobic persecution, and men around him even being pressured to marry women and have children. Touko finds refuge in his liberating art, specialising in homoerotic drawings of muscular men, free of inhabitations. His work – made famous by his signature 'Tom of Finland' – became the emblem of a generation of men and fanned the flames of a gay revolution.