Joel “Joey” Hamlet

I have mixed feelings about the making of this movie, but as a stand-alone movie itself this is an absolute work of art. I used to think I wanted to be a child psychologist, so I spent quite a bit of time studying child cognitive development. The child actors do such a good job or portraying psychological suffering in the way you would expect it to happen in real life, it’s almost scary. Macaulay Culkin, in particular, really became his character while acting. This is why I say I have mixed feelings. This feels like a movie a kid shouldn’t have done. I remember there being such a focus of him saying the infamous naughty word when this movie came out (“Don’t f*** with me”). However, he was also smoking in one scene, and part of what makes this movie slightly troubling to me is the hindsight of knowing that Macaulay dealt with some mental health issues. This would be a challenging part for even a grown-up to play. He was probably so good at playing his part because he was dealing with his own demons so young. Like I said, it’s somewhat frightening what a good job he does. Honestly, the acting is so phenomenal, it could just as well have been focused on two adults instead of who children. If you’ve ever dealt with manipulative family members in real life, this might be a hard watch, but I still think it’s an underrated 90s gem that slipped through the cracks.

I’m trying to get more fluent in Russian, so I honestly watched this for educational reasons only, but was surprised by how intriguing the movie is. I somewhat expected it to be littered with Soviet propaganda based on the cover of the DVD, but I felt that the director was fairly neutral while making some great subtle commentary about how horrible some aspects of the revolution were, even to those “comrades” who gave everything for what they believed in. They did a great job of making the proudly Bashlevic colonel a relatable family man despite the controversial values he stood for. Roughly translated he admits with a smile to his own wife that he would leave his family for the motherland if he had to because he’s a soldier and that’s what soldiers do. I found this to be a very important scene and a statement of his own undoing in the context of the overall film. For the most part, the movie takes place in a single setting on a single day and relies pretty heavily on showing the personality of each character. I felt like a lot of Russian culture is shown, especially the sprinkled humor throughout and the displays of how the family members interact with each other socially (eating together, playing games together, ect.). I would definitely recommend this for anyone interested in foreign films, even if you don’t know Russian. It’s just a good movie.