This is why I shouldn’t see films
that I’m too stupid for…
Last night my friend and I
decided to try out ‘screen unseen’, an offer from Odeon where you pay £5 for a
ticket, but don’t know what film you’re going to see. The film ended up being ‘The Death of Stalin’, starring Steve Buscemi, Simon Russell Beale
and Jeffrey Tambor (among many others), and is directed by Armando Iannucci. The film, funnily enough, is about the death
of Joseph Stalin and the chaos of the regime after his death.
As someone who finds absolutely
zero enjoyment in historical films, I was pleasantly surprised when I
discovered the film is actually a satire, rather than a drama. However, aside
from some funny jokes, I found the film to be very confusing, and at times
boring.
However, I’ll start with the
pros: Steve Buscemi obvs, and as
mentioned previously, the film is funny (people
laughed a lot more than I did but that’s probably because I’m quite slow and
jokes often go over my head), with the funniest performance coming from
Jason Isaacs who played soviet army general Georgy Zhukov.
However, as someone who is pretty
much fully clueless about the Russian revolution, I was incredibly lost
watching this film as you definitely need prior knowledge of the communist
party/ Soviet Union. Due to my lack of knowledge I found the film to be very
confusing, and found my mind wandering during many scenes.
I thought about how I’d like my funeral to be as elaborate as Stalin’s,
wondered if I could pull off wearing one of those cool Russian hats, and also
kept thinking about how a character’s glasses could stay on their face without
legs.
This film most definitely isn’t as
bad as I’m making it out to be, critics and fans alike seem to be very
impressed with it, but if you’re like me and prefer simple films then this one
probably isn’t for you. I like to think that if seeing this film wasn't a surprise, I'd maybe have done some research.
Stalin didn’t die of boredom, but I think I nearly did.
Overall Grade: 43%
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