Tragedy plus time equals comedy, the old saying goes. THE DEATH OF STALIN, oddly, is a comedy, a mix of political satire and farce built around the days before and after the death of Josef Stalin. Anything about Stalin, the Soviet Union’s brutal longtime strongman ruler, hardly seems like fodder for comedy yet director Armando Iannucci manages to replace Karl Marx with the Marx Brothers in THE DEATH OF STALIN. Iannucci is no stranger to political satire, having helmed television’s VEEP, and assembles a splendid cast of mostly British and American actors, many skilled in comedy, for this often hilarious English-language dark comedy.
That strong cast includes Steve Buscemi, Jeffery Tambor, Michael Palin, Paddy Considine and Jason Isaacs, as well as Andrea Riseborough, Rupert Friend and Olga Kurylenko. The fearsome Soviet Union dictator was known for his purges and gulags but this film plays the fear and paranoia of the era for laughs. Many of the events, absurd as they are, really happened although everything is re-framed as farce comedy, with just enough chill of reality underneath.
A France/British/Belgian production based on the graphic novels of Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin, this droll, dark comedy follows the jockeying for power among Stalin’s inner circle after the death of the long-time leader. Steve Buscemi plays Nikita Khrushchev, a talkative schemer who nimbly keeps his footing with a constant string of jokes to distract moody Josef Stalin (Adrian McLoughlin). Stalin’s daily list of executions and detentions are carried out by Lavrenti Beria (Simon Russell Beale), the blood-thirsty head of the security force NKVD. Jeffrey Tambor plays Stalin’s hand-picked successor Georgy Malenkov, a dour, dithering man seemingly chosen for his lack of any threat to “the boss.” The rest of the inner circle, the Central Committee, includes old revolutionary Molotov (Michael Palin), Kaganovich (Dermot Crowley), Mikoyan (Paul Whitehouse), and Bulganin (Paul Chahidi).
Under Stalin’s rule, people at the top have honed staying alive to a fine art. The insanity and paranoia of life under “Uncle Joe” is illustrated in a little prologue based on a real event. In this crazy bit, Stalin requests a recording of a Radio Moscow classical music broadcast. The head of the radio station, played hilariously by Paddy Considine, does not dare tell Stalin that the live performance was not recorded. Instead, they hold the audience and musicians and, after some difficulty with the piano soloist Maria Yudina (Olga Kurylenko), they repeat the performance to record it.
This strange but true incident is one of several peppered throughout this clever, smart, and funny film.
When Stalin suffers a stroke in his room at night and falls to the floor with a loud thud, the guards at his door are too afraid to investigate so he is not found until the next morning. The members of the Central Committee gather but are more concerned with who is in charge than Stalin’s health. Finding a doctor is a challenge, since Stalin’s purges have exiled the best doctors in Moscow to Siberia or worse. As the unconscious Stalin lingers, power shifts back and forth among the politicians, creating panic among them when he momentarily regains consciousness. Once he dies, the serious maneuvering for control gets underway, with plotting and shifting alliances. The committee sends for Stalin’s children, emotional Svetlana (Andrea Riseborough) and drunken, crazy son Vasily (Rupert Friend), as they prepare for the state funeral. The funeral also brings in the leader of the Soviet army, Field Marshall Zhukov (Jason Isaacs), whose power struggles with Beria’s NKVD interjects a new level of crazy.
The humor is mostly played straight, which heightens the comedy. Steve Buscemi is particularly good, and is often the center of the action. Other standouts are Beale’s devious Beria, Tambor’s silly, clueless Malenkov, Jason Isaacs’ imperious, blunt general, and Andrea Riseborough’s appealing, crazed Svetlana. Svetlana teeters between mourning her father and the paranoia left by her weird, restricted life.
Really, this whole cast is terrific, and especially good in deliciously funny ensemble scenes. The squabbling over titles and assignments are hilarious, as are the continual plotting and scheming when any pair of them are out of the others’ earshot. The film is often very funny and has some moments of real brilliance, but there are also moments when grim reality seeps through, chilling the humor.
THE DEATH OF STALIN is a clever, intelligent bit of political comedy, history played for laughs, that is a refreshingly change from the usual low humor comedies of recent years. It opens in St. Louis on Friday, March 23, at the Plaza Frontenac Cinema.
RATING: 4 out of 5 stars
