Room and a Half

"Poltory komnaty ili sentimentalnoe puteshestvie na rodinu" - Russia (original title)

Director: Andrey Khrzhanovskiy
Writers: Yuri Arabov

Cast

Aleksandr Bargman, Sergei Yursky, Aleksei Devotchenko, Grigoriy Dityatkovskiy - Joseph Brodsky, Sergey Dreiden, Alisa Frejndlikh, Svetlana Kryuchkova

Subtitles: english subtitles

The film is more than a biopic, it involves the imagination of the writer and director to make it a poetic look into a Nobel laureate poet's life, that of Joseph Brodsky's.

The movie starts in his childhood and ends after his death, and in fact the part after his death, like most of the other parts of the movie is beautiful fiction. There is an overdose of anti-Soviet tones but that must also reflect what he had to go through until his defection to the US and his parents' troubles with Soviet officials while trying in vain to visit him. No question all of that was true but somehow the movie put too much emphasis on it.

The movie also explored family dynamics from childhood, in a touchy and insightful way how his family bonds were strong, though this also must be fiction. So it is actually better to watch this movie as a pure fiction movie and a good one. And to watch a biography mixed with fiction is surely refreshing