Somebody has to pick Stalin up off the floor. I love how much negotiation this takes. He’s lying in his own piss, and the men quite suddenly running the country are trying to work out whether helping would be a dangerous show of initiative.
The committee meetings gave me much the same pleasure as In the Loop. You kind of imagine that these people are supposed to be grieving, and they’re busy counting votes. I enjoy the panic, especially when they try to pass it off as concern for the country. Letting Buscemi sound like Buscemi helps keep all of this familiar. Nobody is slowing down to demonstrate a Russian accent, and Jason Isaacs’s Yorkshire is a pleasure all by itself. I’d hate to lose any of that to a dutiful attempt to sound historical.
Simon Russell Beale gives Beria enough confidence to make the others look even worse. He’s already figuring out how to use people who are still deciding what face to put on. I find myself following his progress because he’s actually getting somewhere. He’s a repellent bastard, and Beale lets me see how useful it would be to have him on my side. Samuel Goff’s objection in The Calvert Journal is that making Beria so conspicuously monstrous obscures how much killing was accomplished through ordinary bureaucratic work. That bothers me too, although Beale’s efficiency is a big part of what makes him frightening. He’d still be awful if we never saw him hurt anyone. I don’t need quite so much demonstration of his cruelty to believe in it.
I do have trouble with how clearly the film tells me when to stop laughing. Iannucci described his approach as almost having the comedy indoors, in the Kremlin, and the reality outside. He wanted the suffering of ordinary Soviet people treated seriously. I appreciate that care, and Zac Nicholson’s cold, composed photography keeps the violence from looking like it belongs in some other movie. But I can still feel the separation. When we leave the scheming behind to see what it’s costing people, I’m ready for the change. I get to be appalled, then return to enjoying the scramble for power. Sometimes I wish Iannucci would let those feelings get in each other’s way. The dude is seriously compartmentalized.
Four stars, the same as In the Loop, which surprised me. This is bigger and better-looking, and I laughed less. I wanted it to unsettle me more than it did. I still had a very good time watching these bastards try to outlive each other.