Moskau in New York

I first saw this film when the Iron Curtain was still firmly in place and of course it was intriguing and funny. Seeing it again, I found it quite prescient if less intriguing and funny. Robin Williams plays a Muscovite who visits the Big Apple as part of a cultural troupe. On a visit to Bloomingdales, he suddenly decides to defect (a very spin is made on this term!). The rest of the film deals with his attempts to settle in the US.

Obviously given the great political changes in the USSR and Eastern Europe since the film was released, it has aged noticeably. However, it is not entirely without merit. The big plus is obviously Robin Williams. He was and is a great actor and seems to have put in great effort on his Russian and spoken English accents. Notice the way he says "Mister". The hot, hot, hot Maria Conchita Gonzalez (Miss Venezuela 1971) plays an Italian immigrant and the love interest. The overall bent of the film is liberal - African-American families are especially realistically and positively portrayed. The central lesson of the film is that the transition from a Communist to a Capitalist mentality is not easy and the adjustment can bring great joy and sorrow. That is a very valid lesson in the largest context of the later collapse of the USSR and the painful transition ex-Soviet states are still going through.

Manhattan looks so much more varied and gritty and real and less mall-ified than it does today in this, Paul Mazursky's 1984 love letter to the American way, and one of the last unambiguously patriotic mainstream American movies. (It's very much a product of its Reagan time, right down to the casual homophobia.) Robin Williams, for once not twinkling too hard or overworking his virtuosity or adorableness, is an Everyman Russian who unexpectedly defects in Bloomingdale's and goes on to live the immigrant experience, suffering urban indignities and romantic angst along the way. His worklife is a little easier, his economic situation a little less treacherous, and the people he meets a little nicer than they would be in real life. For all that, in its celebration of the melting pot and its warm embrace of the American urban landscape, the movie moved me to tears.

Robin Williams is excellent as a Russian circus performer in New York City with his troupe for the first time, deciding to defect and become a U.S. citizen. After an appropriately dark, though somewhat heavy-handed opening, this comedy-drama from director Paul Mazursky suddenly finds its niche and seldom wavers. It may appear from the early parts of the picture that Williams is giving yet another of his overly-colorful, cartoonish performances, but he too gets into the groove of this project and fleshes out this charming, confounding, complicated man. Maria Conchita Alonso is wonderful as the working girl who falls for Williams (they have terrific chemistry, and Alonso has never been better). A fuzzy, friendly, thoughtful film, a bit too long but occasionally sublime. *** from ****

The movie released in 1984 but I saw it only 2 years ago. I'm from former USSR and this film was prohibited in the Soviet Union.I think it's the best American film about America itself:sometimes fun,sometimes sad.It's useful especially for Russians who want to leave poor Russia for the US and release their 'Russian-American dream'.It's also the best film about the former USSR,its citizens' way of life,its lines to shops,surveillance of the KGB and many other bad things.I'm a history teacher in high school and I demonstrate this film to my young RUSSIAN students in Russian history class.Besides a very creditable performance of Robin Williams,Savely Kramarov.Very clever movie !

As a Russian immigrant myself, I related the story to myself and liked the movie a lot. For those who never had such an experience, you may start to understand how hard it is to adapt to a new culture and why do people want to migrate in the first place. Also, for those who don't get the Russian culture, this might be kind of an introduction to it. Robin Williams is great as always, and I like especially his comedic style in a semitragic movie, which makes it so much easier to watch. If you have something against new immigrants to America and don't get why they come here at all, watch this movie and you'll understand why.