Our Guest from the Future, Review: Russian Film Festival stutters at the end

Our Guest from the Future was the closing film of the Russian film festival, held during December 12-15 at Cinépolis, Andheri West, Mumbai. It attracted almost double the capacity of Auditorium No. 4, the day being Sunday, a weekly holiday here. That caused an inordinate delay in starting the film. Finally, the film was screened, and, sadly so, it was the only weak link in the five film package. Although it was not bereft of values, it simply did not match-up to the other four films, shown on 12, 13 and 14 December. Moreover, being a science-fiction drama, it paled in comparison with Pirates of the Barracuda Galaxy, which is in the same genre. One wonders why the powers that be decided to include two sci-fi movies in a package of just five. This becomes even more noticeable when you recall that Triumph and Ice 3 were both of the sports genre. Surely, there must have been other films to allow a varied choice.

Rusokino, the Russian film apex body, completed 100 years this year, and Our Guest from the Future is divided into two time frames, 2024 and 2104, i. e., the present and a hundred years into the future. The inspiration is clear, and is part of the tilt too: Back to the Future, Hollywood, a trilogy, made in 1985, 1989 and 1990. In its 2024 Russian avtaar, Kolya Gerasimov is an ordinary guy: video games, rap and hanging out with friends. The last thing he cares about is the future. Until one day he gets into the future himself. And everything is not easy there.

The Earth coalition won the intergalactic war, and lives quite happily, only the leaders of the defeated pirate forces are secretly preparing a new offensive. To do this, they need to go back in time and change the course of history, and Kolya unwittingly becomes their tool for time travel, because Kolya is the only one who has access to a much sought substance that works miracles.. But most importantly, Kolya meets Alisa in the future - a girl who is unlike anyone else, and who needs help so much, even though she does not admit it. She falls in love with him, and, after a while, he responds, although he has a girl-friend, back in 2024.

Over-written by writers Aleksandr Andryushchenko, who is also the director, Ksenia Miroshnik and Aands Andrey Zolotarev, this Kir Bulychov novel, (One Hundred Years Ahead), tends to fly off the tangent while the going is good. It appears that the director is attempting too much, to cater to the demands of the front benchers and lay folks, although this comes at a price, when critics come down to analyse things. The angle of the boy from the present getting involved with a girl from the future, is an interesting twist. But the villains, with hideous costumes, are not well delineated. There is not much justification for stretching the film to 141 minutes, where a shorter length was desirable. At times, the movie gets into tangles and the audience could be excused for not getting it right. Incidentally, Aleksandr Andryushchenko produced the Ice series, of which Ice 3 was shown as part of the festival package. He has produced some other films too, and it appears from some research that Our Guest from the Future is his directorial debut. It is not too bad as a debut, but Andryuschencko will have to come up with more polished efforts in his next coming.

Acquitting themselves creditably, without any superlatives, the cast comprises

Darya Vereshchagina Darya Vereshchagina ...         Alisa Seleznyova

Mark Eydelshteyn      Mark Eydelshteyn      ...         Kolya Gerasimov

Aleksandr Petrov        Veselchak U

Viktoriya Isakova       Kira Seleznyova

Yura Borisov              Glot

Konstantin Khabenskiy Professor Seleznyov

Fedor Bondarchuk      Verter

Kirill Mitrofanov        Fima

Sofya Tsibireva          Altukhina

Matvey Astrakhantsev Vityok

Mariya Slidovker        Mama Koli

Lev Zulkarnaev          Mezhgalakticheskiy Kurer

Polina Romanova       Uchitelnitsa Alisy

Andrey Zolotarev       Reportyor

Sergey Shanin             Shkolnyy okhrannik

Yevgeni Moskalyov   KKTF-54

German Yusupov        Yozhik

Aleksandra Khobs      Koshechka

Other credits, diligently done, include Music by Igor Vdovin, Cinematography by Mikhail Milashin, and Editing by Aleksandr Puzyryov and Aleksey Starchenko    

Back to the Future, 1985, the original, was rated highly by three portals:

IMDb

8.5/10

Prime Video

8.5/10

Amazon.in

4.8/5

Since the theme of Our Guest from then Future is on similar lines, one can dare to compare.

Rating: ** ½ (2.5/5)