Just watched this movie in Moscow, on an open air event in Gorky Park. It's been a free screening on rainy Moscow anniversary, and yet the movie theater was full of people, and we heard the movie director presenting the movie in Russian.
I am rating the movie 7 on the merit of that lately fair enough movies about Moscow have become rare & exceptional. Actually I've seen better movies rated 7, but after hesitating for a while, I am rating this one 7 too.
The movie shows several stories of people who live in Moscow and share various social backgrounds, from a famous actor to a high profile businessman and up to a bunch of typical hooligans. All of them are connected like in the well known "Paris, I love you", but unlike the "Paris...", this movie is a bit more dramatic and a bit gloomy, generally following the harsh Russian reality. The movie in general is about 2 things: relations between people and simultaneously about human's place in life, as one of the results of those relations.
Pros for the movie are: 1. it actually combines a foreign vision with Russian experience, which is really nice because it helps to present common Russian things in a bit universal way. 2. it's pleasant to watch, nice camera work and even some amazing views of Moscow included (thanks to the lately advanced drones technology I guess) 3 it's quite complex in plot and many times it is close to being realistic
Cons I'd name the following: 1. in fact to me it does not represent Moscow; by that I mean that after watching the movie you will not in fact get the right vision of what Moscow is. Well, Moscow is rather huge and of course it is possible that somewhere something related happens, but to me Moscow is about hopes, opportunities, huge government machine, luxury and poverty, changes to human lives, aspirations and hardships, which later are normally rewarded. This movie concentrates on some individual stories, which follow in the general Moscow stream, but do not represent it sufficiently enough. 2. even though the movie is rather realistic, at times it is not realistic enough. 3. the movie is rather full of clichés. Actually, the movie suggests the image of Moscow as seen from provincial towns: Moscow is huge, corrupt, and a bit scary and always dangerous. This is a big cliché, and it is not fully true in my opinion. 4. actually the name of the movie does not correspond well to the movie itself. Moscow never sleeps? That makes me think that the movie will be devoted to either nightlife of Moscow or at least to some operations being held 24/7. Not in the movie. We see several episodes related to the nightlife, but not really enough to relate well to the movie name.
Despite the cons - sorry for those, - the movie is pleasant to see, and you still see some true things about Russian society in many aspects. I was left with positive impressions after watching it.
