It's a tricky task to review Mathilde, because the political controversy surrounding this film in Russia inevitably throws a shadow. If you don't like the movie – does it say something about your political taste or the artistic one? And yet I'll attempt. No politics in my review.
The movie is very poorly conceptualized, written and acted. The concept that transpired to me was to produce an expensive box-office success by shooting it in Russia's magnificent historical monuments and by using famous people's story and nudity.
The script seems to be written by a fifth-grader, the dialog is plain and ridiculous and it sounds even more ridiculous in its native Russian. Actually it sounds a lot like it's been written in a foreign language and then translated into Russian, which I think is what had actually happened, the screenwriter being American.
The cast. It looks like the production team was so preoccupied with creating impressive sets very little time was given to casting. Mathilde herself seems to be a copy of Elizabeth McGovern in Ragtime, minus the acting talent. The 41-year old Lars Eidinger is too old for the role of a young and romantic future emperor Nicholas I, who was 25-26 at the time and acted accordingly. (No-no, the story of Nicholas and Mathilde was not a May-December romance!) Also, since the actor is German, he is very artificially dubbed by a Russian voice actor. Nicholas's parents, the Russian royal couple are played by strikingly non-noble actors (chosen no doubt for their fame in Russia). His fiancée Alix is nothing but a weird half-wit, so the closing statement that Nicholas and Alix were happy for 25 years is not supported by anything we saw in the previous 2 hours. In fact none of the characters in the film has any depth or life in them, they all are stick figures, functions of the plot.
As far as the historical aspect of the film is concerned I can take any degree of artistic license, but it distracts me greatly to see the royal family in the 1890-s go about their business without any help (or even presence!) of servants and staff, or use the phone without the help of an operator. No but really, why bother with the historical sets if you don't care how the characters exist in those exquisite spaces?
But most disapointlingly, there is no love story. Two good-looking people randomly falling into each other's arms in various lavish interiors and declaring love do not constitute an on screen love story. There is no chemistry, no depth and no heart in all that we are shown in Mathilde, alas. There is one great true life story that is waiting to be made in a great movie.
The movie is very poorly conceptualized, written and acted. The concept that transpired to me was to produce an expensive box-office success by shooting it in Russia's magnificent historical monuments and by using famous people's story and nudity.
The script seems to be written by a fifth-grader, the dialog is plain and ridiculous and it sounds even more ridiculous in its native Russian. Actually it sounds a lot like it's been written in a foreign language and then translated into Russian, which I think is what had actually happened, the screenwriter being American.
The cast. It looks like the production team was so preoccupied with creating impressive sets very little time was given to casting. Mathilde herself seems to be a copy of Elizabeth McGovern in Ragtime, minus the acting talent. The 41-year old Lars Eidinger is too old for the role of a young and romantic future emperor Nicholas I, who was 25-26 at the time and acted accordingly. (No-no, the story of Nicholas and Mathilde was not a May-December romance!) Also, since the actor is German, he is very artificially dubbed by a Russian voice actor. Nicholas's parents, the Russian royal couple are played by strikingly non-noble actors (chosen no doubt for their fame in Russia). His fiancée Alix is nothing but a weird half-wit, so the closing statement that Nicholas and Alix were happy for 25 years is not supported by anything we saw in the previous 2 hours. In fact none of the characters in the film has any depth or life in them, they all are stick figures, functions of the plot.
As far as the historical aspect of the film is concerned I can take any degree of artistic license, but it distracts me greatly to see the royal family in the 1890-s go about their business without any help (or even presence!) of servants and staff, or use the phone without the help of an operator. No but really, why bother with the historical sets if you don't care how the characters exist in those exquisite spaces?
But most disapointlingly, there is no love story. Two good-looking people randomly falling into each other's arms in various lavish interiors and declaring love do not constitute an on screen love story. There is no chemistry, no depth and no heart in all that we are shown in Mathilde, alas. There is one great true life story that is waiting to be made in a great movie.