Runtime: 1 hour, 47 minutes
Rating: R
Director: Armando Iannucci
Quick Impressions:
When I was in third grade, there was an arcade in the hotel where my dad worked, and my mom used to let my little sister and me play there without quarters (which at our skill level was indistinguishable from playing with quarters). Rampage was the best game in there, and my husband and I had vaguely intended to see that movie this week, but then the showtime was inconvenient, so we opted for another film about a bunch of monsters destroying each other, The Death of Stalin.
I first learned about The Death of Stalin while watching the BAFTAs where it was nominated for at least twenty thousand awards. That seemed like a lot for a film I’d never even heard of. Then I learned that it hadn’t released yet in the United States and would not be eligible for Oscars until this year (though I can’t imagine it will win any, not because it isn’t worthy but because people in the film industry are going to think of it as last year’s movie).
Naturally I became curious about this mysterious, highly lauded British awards darling. What should I expect from The Death of Stalin? I mean, as the title suggests, it really is about the death of Russian dictator Joseph Stalin, and yet it stars familiar actors like Steve Buscemi, Jeffrey Tambor, Michael Palin, Paddy Considine, Jason Isaacs all speaking in their own accents (except maybe Isaacs), and it’s a comedy. So that’s…unusual.
We went into the theater expecting to be baffled, and we weren’t disappointed.
The film is quite good, though. I’d actually like to watch it a second time now that I have some flimsy clue of what it’s attempting to be. It’s an off-kilter mix of gallows humor, political satire, silly comedy, and Russian history (that could forgivably be mistaken for non-Russian current events). It’s quite easy to draw comparisons between the frenetic dystopian chaos of Stalin’s regime and the current political climate in the United States. If I do see the film again, first I’d like to study what’s going on now in Britain more closely, as well. Maybe there’s even something to be said about Putin’s Russia. But you don’t need to be an expert in world affairs to get the gist of the movie (fortunately). It is funny, but this is not really the kind of comedy that makes the audience laugh out loud (with a few notable exceptions). Watching, I got the impression that the actors were encouraged to improvise, but I have no idea if that’s true.
The Good:
I absolutely loved Andrea Riseborough as Stalin’s daughter Svetlana. That’s kind of an odd thing to mention first, but honestly, that’s how much I loved the performance. Actually Svetlana’s behavior is what first convinced me that the actors must be doing a lot of improv. (I can’t prove it, but with people like Jeffrey Tambor and Michael Palin in the cast, it’s easy to believe.)
Riseborough as the loquacious Svetlana and Rupert Friend as her unstable brother Vasily work in tandem to provide the funniest moments in the movie. You really don’t need any sort of canny political sense to appreciate the type of humor that these two bring. As an emotionally stunted, overwrought alcoholic, Vasily creates over-the-top, often outright silly moments to savor. And Svetlana…I’m having a hard time describing why I find her so hilarious.
There’s a sweet tragedy to both of Stalin’s children, and their divergent approaches to the chaotic world around them mirror the reactions of the Russian public (Stalin’s other children) to the life and death of the ruthless and beloved dictator. Vasily is broken and seems to live in a constant state of terror that he tries to cover with drunken bluster. Svetlana, on the other hand, is accustomed to the lunacy of her father’s regime, and behaves as if delusionally unaware of the level of danger she is in. As often seen with the daughter of a famous or powerful father, she’s completely unafraid to speak her mind. I just love her. And what really makes her so wonderfully effective is that she speaks with a British accent and comedic pacing pointing out how insane everything is. I loved the character and the performance.
Steve Buscemi is also pretty great as Nikita Khrushchev, here just a man who puts on his pants one leg at a time, over his pajamas. After the movie, my husband told me that during the film, he’d of course expected Khrushchev (here called Nicky) to come out on top (because…Nikita Khrushchev!), but given Nicky’s rattled behavior and unhinged schemes, he could not imagine how such an outcome would occur.
That’s why I’d like to watch this movie again because the genre is so hard to pin down initially, so while you’re viewing the film, your expectations are all over the map. My strategy of going into a movie knowing as little as possible did not serve me well here.
Not until the film’s end credits did I realize the screenplay was adapted from a comic book (or, I guess, a series of comics). That answered two of the biggest questions in the back of my mind as I watched the film, “Why?” and “How in the world?” What would suddenly motivate someone to write a screenplay about the death of Stalin that’s meant to be a comedy performed in English? As a concept, that’s fairly wacky. But learning that the material is adapted from a comic book is the missing link that makes it all make sense. The story’s graphic origin also explains the stylized, slo-mo introductions to every major character that made me think of The 300 for reasons I didn’t understand.
And every character is…such a character! Jeffrey Tambor is fantastic as Georgy “Georgie” Malenkov. In fact, he’s so perfect for the role that it’s impossible to imagine anyone else playing it, which says something about the odd aesthetic of this production. I mean before this, can you imagine anyone spitballing, “Hey, you know what would be a perfect and obvious role for Jeffrey Tambor? Georgy Malenkov, of course! You know…of Stalin’s Central Committee? Duh!” In this story, Georgie is the sort of easily duped patsy that every puppet master ruling from the shadows finds useful to keep around. Was the real life Malenkov also this type of useful idiot? I have absolutely no idea. I wish I’d gone into this film knowing a little something about the characters who were not Stalin and Khrushchev!
As Molotov, Michael Palin is, at times, screamingly hilarious. It’s hardly surprising that he takes small, insignificant moments and morphs them into riotous comedy bits. What did surprise me is the baffling complexity of Molotov in his quieter, more dramatic moments. Is this guy a prisoner of his own cognitive dissonance, or is he a thoroughly sane and surprisingly Machiavellian schemer? For me, it was impossible to tell.
Jason Isaacs blusters into the film rather late, but plays a key character, the exuberant Field Marshall Zhukov. While watching, I thought, If Vassily and Svetlana were one person, and they could get it together, this is the type of person of power they could become. That’s kind of a weird thought, but it makes sense to me. I mean, if you think of Stalin’s actual children as representative of Stalin’s metaphorical children (the people of Russia), then the figure of a popular military war hero seems like the most realistic embodiment of power they could achieve. Why is this important? It’s not. It’s just what I kept thinking about.
Also of note are Paddy Considine and Olga Kurylenko in an early subplot that seems weirdly unimportant and detached from everything else until an element of it suddenly becomes central to determining the timing of Khruschev’s power play. (Karl Johnson, who like Considine appears in Hot Fuzz, also has a small part in this film and manages to make his tiny role highly amusing).
Arguably the best performance in the film is given by Simon Russell Beale as Beria. The one thing I did know about the movie going in was that Beale’s performance was the one generating the most awards buzz, and his turn as Beria is mesmerizing. The character seems to have so much more depth than most of the others. It’s like he’s in a different movie, honestly. Everyone else is going for laughs, and Beria’s firmly planted in a drama. (Don’t get me wrong. He gets laughs, too, but for someone whose behavior could easily be described as sociopathic and sadistic, he comes across as oddly emotionally invested in all the people he’s manipulating, raping, murdering and betraying.)
As a political satire, The Death of Stalin is definitely firing on all cylinders, and I mean, I’m no mechanic. But you don’t have to be particularly politically informed or astute to notice one thing. Stalin is a murderous dictator who has the entire country living in terror…
Best Scene:
Probably not the best scene, but my favorite is the way the rival schemers literally race to reach Svetlana first and the way she subsequently reacts to the doctors they’ve rounded up. The whole predicament they’re in with the doctors is a gallows humor scream in the first place, and the introduction of Riseborough’s Svetlana is an infusion of this hilarious presence I wasn’t even expecting.
Best Action Sequence:
Maybe the funniest thing that happens in the whole movie is Vasily’s (seemingly endless) struggle for the gun after he’s accused everyone of mishandling his father’s corpse. It should not be as funny as it is, but it goes on and on and on.
Best Scene Visually:
Two moments stand out here. First is the way Stalin’s household is taken apart after the removal at the body (particularly the way the scene is punctuated at the end).
The other is the moment when some of the Siberian prisoners learn that they will not be shot. The looks on their faces are priceless. Even better is our memory of the other prisoner who sadly doesn’t live long enough to appreciate the deliciously grim irony of his death.
Funniest Scene:
Actually all of the scenes I’ve just mentioned are very funny. The whole movie is funny, though much of the (usually gallows) humor comes in the form of either irony or satire. (And then there’s like some potty humor and a tomato.)
But I really love the scene in which Michael Palin keeps pausing during his speech at one committee meeting, so the rest of them remain befuddled, not sure what he is saying and how to agree with him best. He delivers that moment of comedy like a pro (which, obviously, he is).
The Negatives:
At many points during this film, I thought, “Okay, yeah, this is great, but I hope it’s over soon.” But to be fair, I’m recovering from labyrinthitis, so every time my ear buzzing gets loud enough, I fret about my health. So I think I’m having a hard time engaging with some films lately for personal reasons for which the movies shouldn’t be held accountable. But my husband also said he found the movie a little long. That’s one problem with having such morally bankrupt characters. Getting deeply emotionally invested is tricky.
The worst that can be said about The Death of Stalin is that it’s a British, English language comedy about the death of Joseph Stalin based on a comic book, so if that sounds bad to you, I’m sure it will be. This is the kind of movie that you shouldn’t see unless you’re looking for it and are into it. If you’re just trying to find a “normal movie” to fill a couple of hours on a Friday night, this is emphatically not that movie.
Also if I were Russian, I’m not sure that I would like it. (And I definitely wouldn’t like it if I were Stalin or the family of someone murdered by Stalin.) I know there was some outcry when Roberto Benigni made Life is Beautiful (a comedy about the Holocaust!), and that film (which I love) treats its sensitive subject very reverently (I would argue). When Guido accidentally discovers an immense pile of ashes, it is a moment of horror and sorrow. This film really doesn’t have any moments like that (although Beria’s final conversation with Svetlana smacks vaguely of sincerity). Even what is most horrible is offered up as comedic fodder to illustrate the unimaginable, surreal insanity of the terrifying status quo. So definitely some people will be offended by this film, although I think its satirical intentions are honorable.
Overall:
The Death of Stalin is funny, insightful, and unique with a deep, talented cast and a powerful score by Christopher Willis who also scores those new Mickey Mouse cartoon shorts (something to think about as you watch the murderous struggle to fill the power vacuum unfold on screen). It’s kind of like Monty Python meets 1984. In Russia. In English. If you think you’ll like it, you’re probably right.