Translated material
Women's happiness
"You Won't Leave Me" by Alla Surikova on Moscow screens
1952 A non-capital city, which, however, cannot be called a remote province. The local KGB boss (Mikhail Boyarsky) plays tennis with foreigners and speaks excellent English, the capital’s musicians come here on tour (the role of the decorated virtuoso violinist was a brilliant cameo by Nikolai Fomenko), and the town’s drama theater is famous throughout the country. And the main star in it is the production designer, who, either natural modesty or a deep conviction that for those born in the empire, the best place to live is the province, does not allow him to leave the town. In the role of the artist, Alla Surikova films Alexander Baluev - not just aging him by several years (the hero is fifty-two), but carefully expelling from the actor’s appearance everything that has long and firmly attracted directors to him: his masculine stature, courageous, heavily sculpted facial features, a skull accentuated by a short haircut and a regular shape. In this picture, Baluev has a messy fluff of thinning hair on his head (if he were a woman, his hairstyle would be called a “crow’s nest”), on his nose are round glasses that change his face beyond recognition, and he is dressed in something artistic and robe that hides his figure. The only Baluev “option” left by Surikova for the actor is the ability to attract women, regardless of their age and social status.His wife is a young theater actress, the spoiled daughter of a Chekist boss, capricious, eccentric, but apparently sincerely in love with her husband, played by Elizaveta Boyarskaya. And if doubts may still arise regarding her heroine (she is talented in reality or only in the eyes of a man who is in love with her), then doubts about the talent of Boyarskaya herself after the film are unlikely to remain. Throughout the entire film, she deftly balances on the brink of egocentrism and devotion, stupidity and insight, the provincial arrogance of a starlet who imagines herself to be a prima, and the desire to serve art.
Her parents, the playboy dad (Mikhail Boyarsky looks much more dashing on screen than his son-in-law) and the quiet, beautiful mother (Natalia Selezneva), approve of their daughter’s marriage, and the family life of the heroes could be ideally happy (an unprepared dinner and an unplanned purchase of a fur coat don’t count) , but one day he takes out a postcard addressed to his wife from the mailbox...
The addressee, a certain Victor, writes about the happiness of a fleeting meeting in Crimea, about the deep impression that a young woman left on him, about himself - an engineer at a closed Moscow research institute, about an interesting project that he is developing, in a word about life, alluring and beautiful, how every unknown life. The husband does not show the postcard to his wife, but answers himself. A postal romance ensues, a declaration of love, an agreement to meet - all that, if the story happened forty or fifty years later, would be called a provocation. But the hero does not think of provoking anyone at all: he is simply so much in love, so afraid of loss that he is ready, if separation is destined, to hasten it - the wait is unbearable. And let the beloved one get the one who is younger, more beautiful and stronger...
It is the fear of loss and the masochistic desire to bring collapse closer that gives the film what you least expect from Surikova’s film: powerful tension. Moreover, this suspense occurs against the backdrop of scenes from the life of a provincial theater seen by an experienced comedian: the hysteria of the unfading premiere (Elena Safonova) and the healthy cynicism of the premiere, subject to aging (Galina Bokushevskaya); narcissism of the prime minister (Igor Sklyar); helpless screams of the director (Sergei Nikonenko); the director's fright (Andrey Fedortsov); intrigues of the permanent performer of the role of Lenin (Yuri Kuznetsov) and the omniscient secretary (Maria Kuznetsova).
Alla Surikova is one of the directors who are considered to be the “generals” of Russian cinema, those whose work is invariably funded by the state, who have no difficulty in casting famous actors even in tiny roles (the inseparable pair of drunks in the film were played by Alexander Adabashyan and Mikhail Mishin), who is revered (sometimes out of politeness) colleagues and whose works, when appearing on the screen, sometimes cause a bewildered shrug of the shoulders and a legitimate question: “What else is he missing, why expose himself?” - Eldar Ryazanov's last premiere is an example of this. This time it would be inappropriate to ask such a question to Alla Surikova. The answer is clear: she made her film simply because she still knows how to make films.
Yes, now scripts with heroes over forty are not welcomed in successful studios; Yes, the film is being released in an incredibly small print run, and the concerns of the distributors are quite understandable (the title alone can scare away viewers), but sometimes it’s nice to watch a movie with a clearly structured dramaturgy (the script was written based on the story “Grigory Evseevich” by Sergei Ashkenazy), lively characters and thoughtfulness of everyone episode. Next to some of the premieres of this fall - the amateur "Savages", the indecently youthful "Flash", the mannered and inarticulate "Ellipses", the list goes on - Surikova's film really has, if not a general, then a colonel's bearing. It’s not for nothing that they say that women are tougher than men.