![]() Even with a couple of minor reservations, 'The Death of Stalin' as said succeeds in achieving a very difficult task and achieving an ideal balance. The occasional clunker in the writing too but they are vastly out shadowed by the rest of the script being so good. Didn't find that much wrong with it, the character of Svetlana is not as interesting and doesn't have the same depth as the rest of the characters perhaps but this is compensated by Andrea Riseborough still making the most of what she has. 'The Death of Stalin' is a clear highlight. Some may say that for any year in film, but to me 2017 was one of the most hit and miss. Some very good to great films and also some less than average to rubbish ones, as well as ones that fall somewhere in between. 2017 has been a very hit and miss year from personal opinion for films. Some may have a problem with the film not having authentic Soviet accents, and instead a mix of English and US ones, to me this was not a problem as there are many adaptations of Russian literature that mostly don't attempt authentic accents and when they are attempted it has wildly variable results. While it is very evocative and well-researched, it is history but not quite as we know it (kind of like a more sophisticated version of Horrible Histories). It won't be for the faint hearted, it can be violent in a very gruesome sense. 'The Death of Stalin' was one of those films where expectations were high (considering there are some truly great actors here) and those expectations were only met but exceeded. 'The Death of Stalin' embraced this challenge and fully succeeded in its goal. It must have been very daunting to make a film revolving around the period during the death of one of the world's most notorious dictators and mass murderers Joseph Stalin and its aftermath, and make it one that was entertaining, clever and beautifully produced and acted while not trivialising the horrors of the time. This is a bleak yet hilarious comedy built around real events. When Lavrenti Beria, head of the secret police and probably responsible for untold terrors, gently tells Stalin's daughter that she needs to leave Russia because people who are strange like she is don't live very long, it is practically a sweet intimate moment that runs counter to everything we know about the guy. Plus he's basically doing his "funny looking guy" schtick from Fargo, and yet it all works. Jeffrey Tambor is doing his character Hank from the 90s sitcom "The Larry Sanders Show", and Steve Buschemi, as Nikita Khrushchev, doesn't look like any picture of Khrushchev that I ever saw at any point in his life. They all have a collective case of Stockholm Syndrome when it comes to Stalin, still afraid of a man who is dead. A simple show of hands vote becomes a hilarious demonstration of group think. So when the sycophants who surround him are suddenly bereft of his soul, they are all jockeying for power while finding it very difficult to do the one thing that would get you tortured and killed as long as they can remember - independent thinking, or even making suggestions for that matter. It revolves around the power struggle that occurs at the death of Stalin in 1953, a man who had an iron grip on Russia for 30 years and enforced his will with terror, often randomly. Excellent acting, amazing makeup and an interesting story all work together to make a really exciting film.well worth seeing. ![]() Apart from a bit of violence that might be off-putting (after all, the Stalinist regime was one of the most brutal and bloody in history), the film is a delight to watch. It culminates with a very vivid and bloody scene.of a man who truly deserved his fate but watching it is NOT for the faint of heart. The machinations before and especially after are what is intriguing about the story.and how various evil scum surrounding Stalin all vied for power after his demise. The story begins shortly before Stalin's death from a cerebral hemorrhage. Look at it as the best guess as to the events instead.and in this sense and many others the movie is marvelous and very well made. In other words, it tries its best to recreate the events around the time of Stalin's death, though the sources aren't exactly unbiased or 100% truthful.and sometimes the writers needed to infer what was said and done behind closed doors. "The Death of Stalin" is a somewhat fact-based film.
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