The heroine of the film, Mrs. Gurmyzhskaya, is a former beauty who is living out her days in a remote province. Her nephew, a high school dropout, comes to visit her at her estate, and the hostess, out of boredom, decides to have an affair with him... He willingly responds to his rich aunt's advances. Based on a play by A. N. Ostrovsky.
Acting
Tselikovskaya devours scenes like she's starving for entertainment.
Writing
Ostrovsky's 19th-century shade translates beautifully.
Production
Cramped estate becomes claustrophobic character.
Director
Vladimir Motyl
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Ostrovsky wrote this in 1870s Russia, mocking a class too lazy to survive its own extinction. Motyl filmed it as that same class was spiritually dying again under Brezhnev stagnation.
Boris Plotnikov, the nephew, was 44 playing a dropout—Tselikovskaya was 57. The age gap irony is VERY intentional casting.
SU
