In 1890 medical doctor Anton Chekhov writes short stories in newspapers to sustain his parents, three brothers and sister. Discovered by publishers and consequently Leo Tolstoy, he finds success by receiving the Pushkin Prize. His publishers urge him to write novels and plays. However, when one brother dies of tuberculosis, he decides to travel to Sakhalin and meet its convicts who are subjected to terrible conditions. René Féret's final film plays out like one of his main subject's own scripts: it's a gentle, nuanced, above all subtle portrait (performed superbly by Nicolas Giraud) of a man who is "incapable to love" yet has an intense affair with a married woman and cares more for his fellowman than for himself. Assisted throughout by his sister Macha (Masha) and loved by his brothers, he unobtrusively becomes one of the world's most revered authors. This film should be made compulsory viewing to anyone daring to direct one of his major plays. In a remarkable scene he sits quietly in an auditorium watching a rehearsal of 'The Seagull'. Afterwards he gathers the cast round a table and without ranting and raving or raging, he tells them: "You are killing my characters. You want to show the audience what good actors you are. And how funny or dramatic you can be." Life - as seen through the eyes of Anton Chekhov, and the director of this loving, beautiful tribute - is a symbiosis of comedy and tragedy. The two are interminably linked. It's neither broad farce nor Greek catastrophe. Life is laughter hiding the lump in the throat and teary eyes. AND: life or comedy is never merely an unbroken string of coarse words.