Nastya

Almost everybody likes a teenage rom-com with reminiscences of My Fair Lady, in which the unattractive and unpopular girl turns out to be beautiful and self-confident, just to discover that it is not what really matters, but (surprise!) love is... But usually you do not expect these flicks to be directed and manned by A-grade director and actors, or convey a memorable image of a country and way of life falling apart!

This is the case with Daneliya's Nastya that powerfully depicts the Yeltsin-era Russian moral and economic decadence as its background, without ever loosing a mood of optimism, cheerfulness and openness. No hysterical laughters here, but a constant smile; and this is family-friendly entertainment, without dirty jokes. (Although too young viewers might find this dull.)

The otherwise good-looking Kutepova is very convincing as the clumsy-moving and frightfully too-friendly "ugly Nastya" and despite being an amateur actress, the breathtakingly beautiful Markova plays "transformed Nastya" very adequately. (You could say that her acting is wooden but "transformed Nastya" is in a shock-like state for days.) Valery Nikolaev is an annoying ne'er-do-well in the beginning but suddenly shows a lot of dignity and loveliness in the metro station scene -- similarly to Heath Ledger's stadium performance in "10 Things I Hate About You". (He moves very gracefully, too.) You might think that the great comical actor Leonov is wasted in a few-words supporting role as Nastya's boss but he excels in that, too and at last he does not steal the show from the young ones -- Nastya's mother does that sometimes.

"Nastya" is a very sweet romantic fairy-tale. The early 1990s in post-Soviet Russia were not easy - this was the time between the GKChP Communist plot of 1991 (which led to the ousting of Gorbachev, Yeltsin ascending to the top. dismantling of USSR) and the Yeltsin-Communist fights of the fall of 1993 (where the Russian army was shooting on the streets of Moscow). These were tough times, the economy was in disarray, crime was on the rise everywhere. People were struggling for survival every day. In these times, watching "Nastya" was like drinking a cup of nice jasmine tea while being in the gutter. It's a very nice movie, sweet and romantic. I recommend it to everybody.