To me, "Return to legoland" was even more interesting because having spent the second half of the 1980s and almost all of the 1990s in Germany and in the United States, I don't have direct experience of that time. I was moved by the story of Alek (Maciej Stuhr) and his whole family struggling with his alcoholism. It was all very authentic with a good performance of Maciej Stuhr. To me the "coming of age" motives were less convincing. "Return to legoland" also provoked me to some deeper reflections about the 1990s in Poland. We know that alcoholism (similar to other addictions) cannot be cured but can be stopped, and the rate of success is rather decent. So why did neither Alek nor anybody from his family ask for the professional help, and the family concentrated on activities to cover up Alek's drinking instead? For me the answer probably lies in the fact that in Poland in the 1990s there was no open-minded civil society yet. I also asked myself a question: How would this story unfold in today's Poland? My opinion is that Alek would have better chances today, but was our transformation to western democracy and civic society fast enough? I don't know, but this is a different problem. On the whole, I regard "Return to legoland" as an engaging and socially important film that definitely deserves to be seen. It is not a great film, though, and cannot be compared to such classics as "The Noose" by Wojciech Has, "The Lost Weekend" by Billy Wilder or "Leaving Las Vegas" by Mike Figgis. To me, "Return to legoland" is too literal, too naturalistic, and lacks something that we can call "a compelling artistic vision.".
