The Tamesis
In the age of streaming, designed to get as many people scrolling through Instagram as possible, there’s something wonderful about a film that’s not afraid to embrace its specificity.
Producer Nastasya Popov’s directorial debut, idiotAnna Baryshnikov plays Margarita, an aspiring fashion designer runway planstyle reality show called Kill, serve, survive To accommodate her Russian Jewish family in their West Hollywood apartment. (Margarita’s work, consulted by Popov’s sister Mia Kazovsky, co-founder of the Los Angeles label Mimchik, combines post-Soviet kitsch with a runway sense of style that is reminiscent of Russian designer Roma Uvarov. of real-life work.) The end result is unique and delightful; in short, it’s a film for girls who try to tie scarves on their heads like Caroline Bassett-Kennedy, but end up looking more like a Soviet propaganda poster.
Margarita’s recovering alcoholic father brings her chopped plates Slivi (Plum) While she sewed; her musician brother’s simple response when asked if he was gay (“reach”); while her grandmother (brilliantly resurrected by Galina Djokovic) smokes in bed as she regrets her lung cancer diagnosis. idiotWith a supporting cast that includes Julia Fox, Owen Tiller, Benito Skinner, Saweetie, and Camila Mendes, the film seems destined to make its videos go viral on TikTok, and it’s when the film focuses on Margarita’s stubborn and inconvenient love for her imperfect family that it really shines.
“I learned a lot about myself through this movie,” said Baryshnikov, the daughter of ballet dancers Mikhail Baryshnikov and Lisa Reinhart. “I actually grew up in a very American environment. My father defected and there wasn’t a large Russian community for me to grow up, and my mother’s family was from Ohio and Maine, so I knew a lot more about them. But at the same time, we ate at Samamovar in New York every week and worked through idiot, I think I realized that a lot of the culture in my life was actually Russian and Slavic. “
