This is an awful movie. Here's the story: the shy middle-aged surgeon Zhenya Lukashin lives in Moscow and plans to marry for the first time in his life. He tells his girlfriend Katya that he was going to marry another woman a few years ago, but on the very last moment he fled to Leningrad because he didn't really want to be married. Jerk alert! He half-heartedly tells Katya that he won't do that to her.
On New Year's Eve, he goes to the sauna with his friends and gets drunk. He soon forgets that he has a fiancée. One of his friends has to go to Leningrad to celebrate New Year with his significant other. He and Lukashin are so drunk they fall asleep, while the other two friends don't remember who is supposed to fly. So they stuff Lukashin into a plane.
He arrives in Leningrad and is helped off the plane by a grumpy fellow passenger. He annoys and embarrasses another passenger with his stupid drunk behavior and takes a cab home. He almost pisses himself and calls for his mother, before miraculously opening the door with his own key. He has no idea what happened and falls asleep. (the context here is that the Soviet state built lots of identical-looking houses, gave the streets in different cities the same names and that people had similar-looking stuff in their homes. Never mind that this is the definition of an industrialized country).
Somewhat later, the home's owner, Nadya, returns. She is blonde, tall, slim and pretty. She is shocked to find a drunk stranger in her bed and tries to remove him, but barely manages to make him understand what happened before her own fiancé, Ippolit, arrives. Ippolit is serious and old-fashioned. He doesn't believe the story about how Lukashin ended up in Leningrad and opened Nadya's door with his key. He thinks Nadya is cheating on him and leaves in anger.
Nadya and Lukashin get to know each other and fall in love. Nadya turns out to be a teacher of Russian language and literature and tells that she had an affair with a married man for 10 years. Ippolit loses all respect for himself and is entertains suicidal thoughts. As for Katya, we don't even learn what happens to her.
I used to like this movie when I was younger but now it makes me sick. The actors who play Nadya and Zhenya are blonde and angelic-looking, while Katya and Ippolit are depicted as dark, sour, old-fashioned and repulsive. The message is clear: it's a virtue to be at the mercy of your impulses like a leaf in the wind. It means that you're a child of Eden, whose soul hasn't been corrupted by our sick society. Conversely, being sober, conscientious, concerned and reliable, trying to control yourself and your life, having expectations from yourself and from others, makes you a miserable sellout who needs to be put in their place. Expect a friendly punishment from your friends, who are trying to help you. It's for your own good. Never resist any impulse, whether from within or without, whether your own or other people's. Whatever comes your way, be nice and go along with it.
The movie contradicts itself by depicting society as controlling and repressive and forgetting about this fact when it suits the story. In 1970, the Soviet government made passport checks mandatory on planes, so it was impossible to travel with somebody else's ticket in 1975. Even before that, drunk individuals weren't allowed to travel by plane. And why didn't Nadya call the police when she discovered a drunk stranger in her bed? Also, it's impossible for somebody this drunk to sober up in 2- 3 hours.
There's nothing original about the story. Weak, clueless, selfish losers have always tried to make themselves look humble, sensitive, spiritual, artistic and philosophical, while trying to make hard-working and responsible people feel stupid and guilty for being "boring".
In my opinion, the only good things about his movie are the song "Over my street" by Alla Pugacheva and the poem in the end. Everything else is saccharine, mind-numbing propaganda for stupidity, selfishness and depravity.
On New Year's Eve, he goes to the sauna with his friends and gets drunk. He soon forgets that he has a fiancée. One of his friends has to go to Leningrad to celebrate New Year with his significant other. He and Lukashin are so drunk they fall asleep, while the other two friends don't remember who is supposed to fly. So they stuff Lukashin into a plane.
He arrives in Leningrad and is helped off the plane by a grumpy fellow passenger. He annoys and embarrasses another passenger with his stupid drunk behavior and takes a cab home. He almost pisses himself and calls for his mother, before miraculously opening the door with his own key. He has no idea what happened and falls asleep. (the context here is that the Soviet state built lots of identical-looking houses, gave the streets in different cities the same names and that people had similar-looking stuff in their homes. Never mind that this is the definition of an industrialized country).
Somewhat later, the home's owner, Nadya, returns. She is blonde, tall, slim and pretty. She is shocked to find a drunk stranger in her bed and tries to remove him, but barely manages to make him understand what happened before her own fiancé, Ippolit, arrives. Ippolit is serious and old-fashioned. He doesn't believe the story about how Lukashin ended up in Leningrad and opened Nadya's door with his key. He thinks Nadya is cheating on him and leaves in anger.
Nadya and Lukashin get to know each other and fall in love. Nadya turns out to be a teacher of Russian language and literature and tells that she had an affair with a married man for 10 years. Ippolit loses all respect for himself and is entertains suicidal thoughts. As for Katya, we don't even learn what happens to her.
I used to like this movie when I was younger but now it makes me sick. The actors who play Nadya and Zhenya are blonde and angelic-looking, while Katya and Ippolit are depicted as dark, sour, old-fashioned and repulsive. The message is clear: it's a virtue to be at the mercy of your impulses like a leaf in the wind. It means that you're a child of Eden, whose soul hasn't been corrupted by our sick society. Conversely, being sober, conscientious, concerned and reliable, trying to control yourself and your life, having expectations from yourself and from others, makes you a miserable sellout who needs to be put in their place. Expect a friendly punishment from your friends, who are trying to help you. It's for your own good. Never resist any impulse, whether from within or without, whether your own or other people's. Whatever comes your way, be nice and go along with it.
The movie contradicts itself by depicting society as controlling and repressive and forgetting about this fact when it suits the story. In 1970, the Soviet government made passport checks mandatory on planes, so it was impossible to travel with somebody else's ticket in 1975. Even before that, drunk individuals weren't allowed to travel by plane. And why didn't Nadya call the police when she discovered a drunk stranger in her bed? Also, it's impossible for somebody this drunk to sober up in 2- 3 hours.
There's nothing original about the story. Weak, clueless, selfish losers have always tried to make themselves look humble, sensitive, spiritual, artistic and philosophical, while trying to make hard-working and responsible people feel stupid and guilty for being "boring".
In my opinion, the only good things about his movie are the song "Over my street" by Alla Pugacheva and the poem in the end. Everything else is saccharine, mind-numbing propaganda for stupidity, selfishness and depravity.