Hugo Weaving, Web Weaving: Russian Doll Review
 

n. Hugo Weaving ~ Russian Doll 

AU Movie 1999 (released 2001) 
Hugo Weaving content: approx  96%   (90 mins )
Character: Harvey ~ quiet, downtrodden, booze-soaked PI
Cast: Hugo Weaving Harvey,  Natalia Novikova Katia, David Wenham Ethan , Rebecca Frith    Miriam,  Sacha Horla   Lisa
Dir: Stavros Kazantzidisaka Stavros Andonis Efthymiou 
Wri: Stavros Efthymiou   Allanah Zitserman
Availablity: not available in UK. DVD and video available in AU/US.
Hugo Weaving Russian Doll bubbles

Hugo Weaving: Russian Doll Plot/Comments:

The third of Kazantzidis's Hugo Weaving films, Russian Doll is a rare addition to modern rom-coms: more of a fluffy Bogie/Cary Grant hybrid than a 3-Kleenex Sandra Bullock schmooze-fest. OK, it's waffer-thin, but who cares?
Hugo Weaving Russian Doll think

Harvey, a mild-mannered, rather pedestrian Private Investigator specialising in divorce evidence thanks his stars that he has such a  solid and trusting relationship. Naturally, when shooting evidence for a new case, he finds the interloper bears a striking resemblence to his girlfriend... 
        Depression, booze binges and a case resulting in the double homicide of two adulterers by another client bring his world crashing down: the only solid thing left in his life seems to be the ongoing Perfect Marriage of his Ultimate YUPPIE Couple best friends. Except even that is fake: Ethan (David Wenham, laconically and effectively cast against expected type as an Orthodox Jewish Bondi lawyer) calmly informs him while doing the dishes that he's been screwing around on his wife.

Ethan makes Harvey an offer he can't refuse: take rent and an allowance, quit the dead-end PI job, start his long-planned detective novel...and act as a 'front' for his new Russian émigré mistress by marrying her so that she can stay in the country.  There's one extra catch: she is everything that drives him nuts and the feeling is entirely mutual.
    Of course you know what is going to happen: it's a genre convention but it doesn't matter; as with Kazantzidis' other films, it's how they get there which is the important part.

The Russian Doll Gallery
The Russian Doll Press Pack
Russian Doll Interview
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Web Weaving

Harvey ~ a quiet, fastidious, conservative, boozing ex-smoker, catholic-turned-aetheist~ is stuck in Cabin Fever Hell with Katia ~ a loud, untidy, overbearing, flash-tack, chainsmoking lapsed Russian Orthodox Jew (Novikova).
     Bitter about living with exactly the kind of life-wrecking adulterer who destroyed his own life, Harvey is trapped: on one hand he wants to protect his best friend from being found out; on the other to protect Miriam (Frith~superb) from being hurt; and somewhere in the middle, he's stuck with his own need to start again after messing up his life continually since dropping out of college and spending his life cataloguing the sleaze and divorce misery of others. 
      As the wedding looms closer, Harvey and Katia are united in their drinking in Russian karaoke dance joints (Harvey is a habitual alcoholic with mini beer belly to match) and honest need for love. 
Hugo Weaving, Russian Doll Kiss

Kazantzidis again uses trademarks to cover up a serious lack of budget and move the action along: jump cuts, hand-held video footage and montages, and as ever, he uses a terriffic choice of songs to great effect.
    Critics have sniped that the ending seems rushed, possibly due to the buget running out (an altar stand-up; prolonged social embarrassment; Miriam and Ethan's reconcilliation and her confiding to Harvey that she'd known all along; Harvey's eventual jump-cut search for Katia in a Russian winter). It is rushed, but not in a completely unsuccessful way: given the ideal pacing of what came earlier, it's hard to see where extra footage would have found a place.
   Weaving is in nearly every scene, giving a performance of real warmth, gentle cynicism and pain (as one review noted, Harvey is a rather battle-scarred Ideal Man)  and his character is given the opportunity to change. In contrast, Novikova, while certainly spirited, is not given the opportunity to show many layers to her character and she can often seem more like a noisy plot device. Giving her some more dialogue-free time may have enabled her character to be a little more varied: a good example of where this works is her one segment of quietness where she helps Harvey prepare for an unsuccessful date with her friend , she is stood up by Ethan, and she and Harvey end up sleeping together.
     The film ends with an OTT Jewish wedding back in Sydney: all spiralling cameras, running children, big merangue dresses, cheesy bands and rejoicing in its unabashed tackiness, family and warmth. Harvey has finally found the reason to be free of his many hangups, enjoying happiness without the aetheist cynicism or catholic guilt he's saddled himself with for so long.
     By no means an 'important' film, Russian Doll is a rarity: a sparkling script; an entertaining, old-fashioned heart-on-sleeve odd-couple rom-com without Meg Ryan in sight.

Typical Hugo Weaving Quotes:
  • "I think I'm doomed to wander the Earth alone"
  • "I try not to believe in anything and that way I'm not disappointed"


 Comments and Queries:

  • AFI winning script for Kazantzidis and Zitserman: see publicity photo here 
  • Another stuttering part (see The Interview, Priscilla, That Eye The Sky )
  • Fourth pairing of Kazantzidis and friend Weaving (also see Road to Alice , True Love and Chaos , Strange Planet and Horseplay ) in another role written specifically for him: "I love the mix of masculinity and fragility, credibility and integrity Hugo brings to a role." Weaving is given a co-producer credit as a thanks for his support, though he claims he did nothing.
  • Frith made Strange Planet with Kazantzidis and Weaving (as the wife he cheats on but can't quite leave).  David Wenham also made  That Eye The Sky, After the Deluge and The Lord of the Rings with Weaving (though no shared scenes in the latter). See The Usual Suspects for a huge list of recurring Weaving co-workers.
  • In the beer-bubble blowing scene, Weaving seems to be wearing an organge Trainspotting movie T-shirt (great shirt, though not very Harvey?).

Hugo Weaving content:

Harvey  has made a living from other people's misery; pretending to write a Great Novel when really it's an excuse to shut himself away and write pulp;  lying to Miriam; sleeping/falling in love with his best friend's mistress; and avoiding any emotional risk by always admitting defeat. In short, he's a deceptively laid-back bucket load of repressed catholic guilt and self-disgust.

n. Kazantzidis insists in interviews that this is "the real Hugo Weaving", or as close to self-protrayal as he had come by 1999 ~ assuming this is in the easy-going, honest, good-hearted, cynical way...
Hugo Weaving, Russian Doll Grin

Some key sequences: 
  • Finding out in the Loser's Date From Hell that a client has killed his wife and lover, Harvey returns home for a booze binge, blowing beer up to the ceiling and sitting like a dejected and bored child, watching crap on telly and blowing booze-filled spit bubbles.
  • The usually anally-reserved Harvey rapidly spilling verbal beans in a contrasting series of to-camera 'confessions' to an unseen shrink
  • Finding success with a man-eating, voracious Russian friend of Katia's, only to find it wasn't what he wanted at all, self-deprecatingly putting down his own sexual prowess and contentedly returning home to quietly comfort a distraught Katia with the cure-alls of strong booze and a gentle kiss.