Spoiler Warning: This discussion has very few spoilers: some set up from the first act, a general idea of the narrative at hand.
"Who the fuck in their right mind would want everlasting life? The endless conversation."
Armando Iannucci’s The Death of Stalin was an intriguing watch. Prior to this, my only experience with Iannucci was as a writer or producer, but I have always liked the kind of comedy he’s created. This had all the markings to really hit the mark for me; I do love some Steve Buscemi. But, in the end, it missed a little.
That is not to say that I think this is a bad movie or an unfunny comedy. I think it is both well-made and amusing in the right places. For me, Russian history is one of my weak points, and so I feel like I missed out on a lot of the comedy here. In a couple of years, I’ll come back to this once I’ve done some real reading on the Soviet side of the Red Scare and Stalinist Russia.
Regardless, I still found a good amount of humour in this. Steve Buscemi gets some of the better lines; Paddy Considine shows off his comedy chops in his brief appearance; Rupert Friend’s Vasily Stalin is amongst the more absurd comedy, yet my absolute favourite is Jason Isaac’s Yorkshire take on Field Marshal Zhukov. The general aversion to Russian accents was a clever idea; it avoids the potential failure of a hammy accent and allows for some extra comedy beats.
I don’t have much else to say about this. It’s a good looking movie with some well-written satirical comedy about one of the most infamous dictatorships in recent history. Again, I will be reading up on a lot of this stuff, because much of it seems to be true. The Russian Film Board banned it, and Iannucci reportedly had to cut some material because it came across as too unrealistic. I wish this had a little more kick to it, though. Not enough context is ever truly given about Stalin’s Soviet Union for the historical gags to land with the intent they were originally written with.
Connor Clarke Film 