Reviews

Maksim, the protagonist of the story, wants his father's attention. The father left Maksim's mother and married another woman and had another child with her. The father yet has another mistress names Anna. Clearly, the father is a very busy man. Maksim goes to extreme lengths to get his father's attention. He is clearly a disturbed young man. He probably didn't get much love before and neither he does now. Even his girlfriend doesn't seem to care for him much. So Maksim decides to kill the dad's mistress... The logic behind Maksim's decision is somewhat vague. It just seems like a bad idea that came into his head randomly. We follow him for about an hour of the film's running time. What we see doesn't make us feel much empathy for Maksim - if anything, personally, I was slightly annoyed as the film drags on - he is a thieving, trouble-making little s...t.. "Hurt people hurt people" is kind of a script here.

Artem Yakovlev's debut as Maksim is a decent acting entry into the film industry but the true star of this movie is Darya Ekamasova as Anna. When the narrative truly focuses on her in the last part of the movie, the story comes to life. Ekamasova's nuanced subtle performance is worth waiting for. Anna is heartbreaking - you root for her. She is the allegory of thousands of wonderful Russian women who have the misfortune of not being able to find decent men and, often, settle for those who are not available or not worth their time, or both. Anna breeds dogs for a living. She is caring and loving because, of course, this job requires exactly that kind of a person to do it right. In one of the scenes when she talks about puppies, she mentions buyers mostly want male puppies - they are more expensive than female puppies. It's a metaphor for the general state of misogyny in a society where whether you're a human or a puppy, you're easily discarded as a female.

A secret service officer is tasked with infiltrating a theater troupe to find out any suspicious activity in Switzerland during the fall of the Berling wall in the 80s. He falls in love with an actress, one of those he spies on, and finds his true self. Everything in this comedy is predictable and not especially funny. Boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, girl gets mad at boy but love prevails. The pace seems slow because you just want to rush the scenes to the expected end. It's everything you have seen before done much better: a little bit of Tootsie, a little bit of HBO's show Barry, a little bit of..you get the point.

The film has two parts. It is up to your interpretation to decide what part is an actual event and what is the script. However, both could be two versions of a script that Aubrey Plaza's character Allison concocted. She is a guest of Gabe and Blair, who is pregnant, Who's-Afraid-of-Virginia-Wolf like couple 2.0 in a new but already highly dysfunctional marriage. Part One, real or not, but Allison is clearly the one in control here. While she seems like an innocent by-stander who just randomly got herself in an unwelcome situation, her behavior pokes (a bear, get it?) out the worst reactions from her hosts revealing a monsterous relationship that will destroy not only them but everyone around them. As real as it feels, all of it also could be just in the imagination of Allison - it could be just a script, a sort of therapy/ revenge fantasy with cathartic resolution that Allison wrote after her life as an actress on a set.Allison mentions she has been a difficult actress who has a hard time finding work, so she turned to screenwriting, so Part Two of this film could be a pre-story of what happened to her or it could be just another script interpretation of it (perhaps written during but before the finale of Part One?). In that part the film director and the main lead actress with the same names as in Part One, mess with her head on the set to get her jealous and somewhat get the best performance out of her, bringing her to a total meltdown in front of the whole crew (all of them are quite a mess themselves - they could have had a film of their own; an amazing group of supporting actors here). What's reality? What's fiction? All? Some? Or none? This film is for those who do not need to have clean cut answers and are happy when a film opens a door for interpretation.Aubrey Plaza gives a jaw-dropping performance - the best role of her career in my opinion. She is a revelation here. Christopher Abbott and Sarah Gadon are fantastic at making you gravitate towards a theory that Part One MUST be real. Part One belongs to them but the whole film belongs to Aubrey Plaza. One of the best films I have seen in 2020.

It's very obvious from the start how this movie will go and what the end of it will be. The cast is great to watch but there are no character challenges here really - not that there is a need in that either. It is all good to the certain point when the clichés overwhelm the script so much that you are not even able to take seriously enough to drop a tear for the film's another tragic storyline of a dying mother Stone (Diane Keaton) who has not revealed to her kids that cancer is taking her life and it's it their last Christmas with her.

The main plot is simple. A serious well-to-do son Everett(Dermot Mulroney) brings his soon-to-be-bride girlfriend Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker seems to have fallen into the trap of being type-casted as a neurotic yet stylish woman from New York) for his family's approval. She is disliked even before she steps her foot into the house - that is a premise for series of comedic situations when you witness the clash of personalities as well as their insecurities. Think "Junebug" but very 2-D. Amy, one of the sisters (Rachel McAdams) immediately makes Meredith's stay practically impossible by being the bitchiest family member while Ben (Luke Wilson), a free-spirited son (and predictably the opposite of Everett) lays his eyes and sees the good in Meredith even though she makes many tactless, sometimes even horrid mistakes contributing to the fact of being disliked by each member of the diverse Stone family. Diverse it is indeed, there is also a deaf gay brother and and his African-American boyfriend planning to adopt a child - they are a subject of one of the pivotal scenes in the movie when a little bit of a political message is brought up and it shows that The Stones are worthy of their last name by sticking up for each other and also there is pregnant sister (a character that is absolutely unnecessary and is in the movie to fill "the more- the merrier" cliché of family films). Claire Danes plays the easiest role of her career - Julie, Meredith's sister, who arrives to support her sister in a difficult time of trying be liked and predictably finds love in the family. Avoiding to reveal too much of the movie that gets sappier and sappier towards the end and runs out of comedy too soon, I would like to note that overall the film has a positive and kind message but we have seen it all before.