A Moscow cobbler falls for a mob boss's wife in this chaotic post-Soviet romantic crime comedy.
Against the background of Moscow of the new Millennium with its concrete and glass business centers and picturesque garbage seller Shoe store — "shoemaker" Gorokhov — gets out of the most incredible stories. Once Gorokhov falls in love with a young beauty Alice, the wife of crime boss named "Pukhliy"…
Production
Moscow's brutalist-glass jungle perfectly captures early 2000s oligarch aesthetic.
Acting
Sergey Gorobchenko's desperate everyman energy is weirdly hypnotic.
Writing
Bizarre tonal whiplash between slapstick and genuine melancholy.
Director
Vladimir Zajkin
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Released during Russia's wild capitalist transformation, the film satirizes the new oligarch class while oddly romanticizing their world.
Director Zajkin never made another feature; this remains a fascinating one-off artifact of its era.
RU
