Springtime for Khrushchev
A word of warning: The Death of Stalin is set in the Soviet Union, yet the actors use their own accents. It’s a choice that will, at first, make you wonder whether you walked into The Godfather Part 4, a crossover feature with the cast of Snatch. Stick with it anyway. An hour and forty-six minutes later, you’ll emerge from the theater with a spring in your step and Christopher Willis’ excellent score parumping away in your head.
Armando Ianucci, who also created Veep, is a special type of writer; he has great timing but cannot write traditional jokes. Listen for the actual punchlines in Veep and they invariably fall flat. The first season of that show felt like the work of a quick-witted policy wonk who thought himself a touch more clever than he actually was. However, over the course of the second season Iannucci grew more comfortable and eventually evolved a unique and entertaining style. First, he twists the ideals of American government in on themselves like a particularly silly looking balloon animal. Then he sets a series of ridiculous personages loose inside to collide with and insult one another with a variety of gibes usually involving sex organs.
The same progression – from weak comedy to outright hilarity – is at work in The Death of Stalin. The opening salvo – in which radio broadcasters force a concert audience to sit through the same performance twice because they neglected to record it for Stalin – felt forced and unnatural with dialogue that would have been more at home on the stage than the screen.
Moreover, we were, as mentioned earlier, more than a little put off when we heard Nikita Khrushchev speaking with Steve Buscemi’s New York accent, and Simon Russell Beale’s Lavrenti Beria responding in a voice that could belong to a debauched English country clergyman.
But then Khrushchev and Beria begin chest bumping each other. And it’s off the races for what other critics might call a “delightful romp,” or, as we’ve been calling it, a “Springtime for Khrushchev.” After the initial awkwardness dissipates, The Death of Stalin reveals itself to be Armando Iannucci’s funniest work yet – on par with and even surpassing his finest moments in Veep.
As promised, Stalin sheds the ol’ coil and his underlings begin trying to twist the byzantine Soviet political system to their own advantage. The performances make the movie – Beria, a fat little schemer, Malenkov, a sentimental dope played by Jeffrey Tambor, Malatov, an out of touch intellectual played by Michael Palin, Red Army Commander Zhukov, a manly man with the facial scar to prove it played by Jason Isaacs, and finally Nikita Khrushchev, the film’s unlikely anti-hero. As you might imagine, it’s a fantastic mix. The acting is just this side of camp and all the better for it.
Iannucci, too, is in top form, showing much creativity in the way of putdowns – e.g. “camel cock” and “slim Hitler” (our favorite) – as well as in the way he melds history, a wonkish understanding of Soviet politics, and comedy. In one memorable scene, Malatov twists himself into rhetorical knots trying to determine whether respecting Stalin’s “iron will” requires carrying out the deceased leader’s instructions or ignoring them completely.
Listen for punchlines and you won’t find many. But The Death of Stalin’s energy and timing work so well, they propel the film like a pebble expertly snapped onto the surface of a lake. We scarcely have time to consider what works and what doesn’t. All we can do – and all we really want to do – is simply sit back and chuckle.
...seen at the IFC Center.