Russian Doll
Harvey (Hugo Weaving), a self-doubting private investigator, plans to marry his girlfriend until he is hired to solve an adultery case and discovers the adulterer is cheating with his fiancée. Lost and dejected, Harvey quits his job and wallows in booze and the occasional odd blind date. Meanwhile, Katia (Natalia Novikova), a Jewish woman from St. Petersburg, arrives in Sydney after answering an ad from an international matchmaking agency. But instead of love, she finds her prospective groom dead on arrival. Stranded in a foreign city with no one to turn to, Katia meets Ethan (David Wenham), a married man and Harvey’s best friend. Ethan is soon scheming to figure out a way to keep Katia in the country without his wife Miriam (Rebecca Frith) discovering the affair. Ethan comes up with the perfect solution: he offers Harvey enough money to start writing the novel he has always dreamed of, if he agrees to marry Katia.
Harvey is appalled by the idea. Ethan’s marriage had been his only example that love can faithfully exist. However, since he needs the money to get started on the book, he reluctantly agrees to let Katia move in. But soon this "marriage of convenience" is anything but, as Miriam learns about the upcoming nuptials and is so pleased that her husband’s best friend has finally found someone, she insists on turning the wedding into a grand affair. Inevitably, Ethan and Harvey’s friendship is tested and hidden emotions are revealed between Harvey and Katia. Amid all the chaos of planning the wedding, every one is left to wonder, is this any way to find true love?
Member Reviews
Don't Open This Russian Doll - CharleyJames
Don’t waste your time or a spot on your Zip list.
This is a minor, unoriginal comedy from Australia starring Hugo Weaving, who came to international attention as the most wistful of the drag queens in "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" and went on to "The Matrix."
Weaving has charm and versatility, and here he's venturing into Hugh Grant territory. But he hasn't the looks or star power to pull it off.
He gets scant help from a script that casts him as a Sydney private detective who, hired to get the goods on an adulterous husband, discovers that the woman the adulterer is cheating with is Harvey's own fiancée. At precisely the same moment, Natalia Novikova, a gorgeous young Russian, discovers the man an international matchmaking agency fixes her up with is dead in his easy chair.
Fleeing from his Sydney apartment in tears, she is offered a handkerchief by a man in the street, David Wenham, who is captivated instantly by her and begins a torrid affair with her.
There's a catch: Ethan is married but Katia can't stay long in the country without getting married. What to do but pay his best friend Harvey enough money to marry Katia so that he'll be able to quit the private-eye work he's come to loathe and settle down to work on that novel he's always been meaning to write.
As Ethan's wife, Rebecca Frith, starts planning a big wedding for Harvey and Katia, Katia finds that Ethan has no time for her. She and Harvey discover that it's difficult not to discover each other. A crystal ball isn't needed to see what happens next.
Directed and co-written by Stavros Kazantzidis with no distinction whatsoever, "Russian Doll" quickly becomes silly and tedious.
Member Reviews
Read All...
Don't Open This Russian Doll - CharleyJames
Don’t waste your time or a spot on your Zip list.
This is a minor, unoriginal comedy from Australia starring Hugo Weaving, who came to international attention as the most wistful of the drag queens in "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" and went on to ...