User Lists
Related lists from IMDb users
Share this Rating
Title: You I Love (2004)
Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.
Photos
Cast
| Credited cast: | |||
 |
Damir Badmaev | ... |
Uloomji
|
|
|
Lyubov Tolkalina | ... |
Vera Kirillova
|
|
|
Evgeniy Koryakovskiy | ... |
Timofei Pechorin
|
| Rest of cast listed alphabetically: | |||
|
|
Nina Agapova | ... |
Elderly Neighbor
|
|
|
Aleksandr Dulerayn | ... |
Deputat
|
|
|
Irina Grineva | ... |
Make-Up Girl
|
|
|
Anatoly Mankhadykov | ... |
Uloomji's Father
|
|
|
Valentina Mankhadykova | ... |
Uloomji's Mother
|
|
|
Yuriy Sherstnyov | ... |
Watchman at the Zoo
|
|
|
Victor Shevidov | ... |
Uncle Vanya
|
|
|
Alisa Tanskaya | ... |
Woman, discussing Vera
|
|
|
Mikhail Tarabukin | ... |
Lyolik
|
|
|
Emanuel Michael Vaganda | ... |
John
|
|
|
Aleksandr Vartanov | ... |
Voice of a radio DJ
|
Storyline
Vera and Tim are successful young professionals living fast-paced lives in ultra-modern Moscow. Their lives crackle with the capitalist energy of excess, anxiety, consumption, and stress- and they are in love. Everything changes one night when Tim accidentally drives his car into Uloomji, a young Kalmyk day worker. (The Kalmyks are a semi-nomadic people of Mongolian decent.) The two men begin a torrid affair that involves howling and knocking over a lot of furniture. Tim is attracted to Uloomji's exotic demeanor and liberated by his impulsiveness and lack of inhibition. To Uloomji, Tim embodies a kind of class and refinement he sees only in magazines. Vera struggles to comprehend their bond and her boyfriend's erratic behavior. She is dragged reluctantly into a bizarre love triangle. Before long, all three lives unravel, exemplified by a visit to a Buddhist healer, a three-way in the bathroom of a gay bar, a faked death and a kidnapping. Written by Sujit R. Varma
YA LYUBLU TEBYA (You I Love) is a fast paced bonbon of a movie from Russia being hailed in some circles as the 'hottest gay film of the year'. Hot it is not: fun it is. The message from director/writers Olga Stolpovskaja and Dmitry Troitsky seems more a PR statement about how Westernized and modern in social behavior Russia has become since Perestroika than creating a significant gay film. Yet somehow the result is a rapid sequence entertainment that should appeal to a very wide audience.
Timofei (Evgeny Koryakovsky) is a young, successful ad executive in Moscow, able to afford all of the luxuries of his Western counterparts. He is in a relationship with Vera (Lyubov Tolkalina) who is a popular TV personality. They have a fresh and vital lifestyle, emphasizing the manifestations of capitalism. Simultaneously we meet Uloomji (Damir Badmaev) who comes from the poorer provinces, the son of a strict and struggling worker family. Uloomji strikes out for Moscow to find a job and a life. He 'accidentally' encounters Timofei who feels sorry for the homeless youth and takes him to his apartment for care...and cavorting! The socially naive Uloomji and the sexually naive Timofei collide (the metaphor is readily apparent) and are discovered in embrace when Vera returns home. The remainder of the story is how the two men and one woman grow into a ménage a trois of sorts and how the friends and families of the three respond.
While the story is really one of bisexuality it is played as a drawing room comedy (? TV sitcom Moscow style?) and while the film takes a lot of visual and technical chances - some of which work well, others spoil
- the final result is a light entertainment that doesn't really push
the edge purported by the trailers and the PR media glut. The three main actors are excellent and show promise of becoming stars in their own right. This is a fun film that asks the audience to just step on for the ride for an inside look at the now-open Moscow life! Grady Harp