Dama de Espadas

The Russian opera diva Sofia Mayer (Kseniya Rappoport) returns to Russia after many years of international career and intends to produce Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades that was her debut. She meets her nephew Lisa (Mariya Kurdenevich) and invites her to perform Lisa in the opera. Lisa's boyfriend Andrey (Ivan Yankovskiy) is obsessed by the character Herman from the opera and has a magnificent voice. However, he is not selected to any role. Andrey is invited to have dinner with Lisa, Sofia and her old friend Oleg (Igor Mirkurbanov) at his home where Sofia is lodged, and then they leave Andrey to go somewhere. Andrey follows them and finds that they go to Oleg's hidden casino. Further, he learns that Sofia is a cynical woman, alcoholic and gambler, who lost her fortune in her addiction. On the next day, Andrey returns to the casino to gamble all his savings in the game Faro, like Herman in the opera, and wins. When the performer of Herman, Golovin (Vladimir Simonov), has a throat infection, Sofia finds a way to dismiss him and brings Andrey to the opera to the role of Herman. Soon he becomes Sofia's lover and his obsession for Herman drives him to follow the same fate and tragic end of the character.

"Dama Pik", a.k.a. "The Queen of Spades", is a Russian movie highly recommended for fans of opera. If the viewer knows the plot of Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades, he or she will certainly appreciate this film much than I did, since I did not know this opera. The plot is an adaptation of the opera, and the performances are excellent, highlighting the beauty of Kseniya Rappoport. The character Andrey follows the steps of Herman, for whom he has an unexplained obsession. The descriptions in IMDb of the plot are very poor and misguide the viewer. If the viewer does not know the plot of the opera, my suggestion if to search Internet for this information before watching this movie. I regret that I didn't. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Dama de Espadas" ("Queen of Spades")

Kesiniya Rappoport plays a Russian Diva who is staging Tchaikovsky's opera about a card game that one can win or lose. A young unknown singer badly wants the lead part Herman, in fact he wants to be Herman. He is literally willing to die for the part and willing to have mobsters fund his larger and larger bets to emulate the fictional Herman. Appropriately he does get the majority of screen time. However this is Rappoport's film and she dominates with a great performance.

This Russian film is somewhat derivative, how could it not be, of the earlier Tchaikovsky based film "Black Swan". I think that this one is even better.

The script suffered a weakness then further compromised by a mediocre directing. The casting job was pretty good. Viewers who like opera would be glad to find out the opera scenes in this movie were quite good, quite a treat! The voice over for the two females and the young male actor looked pretty seamless, especially the young female's voice quality was superb. The storyline was a bit lame. Also, it seems that "The Queen of Spade" was the older diva, not the younger one.

*There's typo in the short description of the movie:

"...and finds a win it back", it should be "and finds a way to win it back"

Also, Kseniya Rappoport's marriage year is 2016, not 201? Quote: Spouse (1) Dmitriy Borisov (201? - present) Quote: "In 2014 she met restaurateur Dmitriy Borisov. As of February 2016, they were married for some time."