The first two episodes of the series "Chemistry between Us" aired on Wink on March 6. Although the plot is based on the struggle of a single mother with cancer, the authors of the show chose the comedy genre, and the laughter in the audience did not stop at the Moscow premiere. Izvestia reviewed the first episodes and found that Sasha Bortich has once again done the impossible, and the series is rightly considered one of the most important premieres of this season.
"Kidney" and "Chemistry between Us" were released simultaneously
There has always been something of a competition between Sasha Bortich and Lyubov Aksenova. Both are beautiful and sexy, both are so bold and self-mocking that they are not afraid to look ridiculous, comical and simply unsightly in the frame. They've owned Russian cinema for ten years now, and if we find out that someone is shooting something bold, ironic, tough, smart, then most likely either one or the other is starring there. And every time the audience is delighted, and deservedly so.
Today we are witnessing this competition in the most blatant form. Two similar series were launched a week apart — the third season of "Kidneys" on KION and "Chemistry between Us" on Wink. Counter-programming as it is. We can't say what the two actresses have in common, but Sasha can definitely add one point to herself in this round.
A shot from the TV series "Kidney"
The plot of "Chemistry Between us" is already roughly known to many, because the advertising campaign of the series has been running for more than six months and covers the triumphant festival premiere on the "New Season" in September. Back then, the series received a lot of positive criticism, so the project has been very much anticipated ever since. In short: single mother Tanya brings up two children and works as a taxi driver. One day, she is diagnosed with advanced cancer, and the heroine begins to wonder what will happen to her children after their imminent death. The only thing that comes to Tanya's mind is to find a new husband: the first one died three years ago. In chemistry, she meets a handsome fellow in misfortune, played by Nikita Efremov, who is bald-headed, although he has hair on the poster of the series.
A shot from the series "Chemistry between us" with Sasha Bortich
Just a second, you say. After all, this is the plot of the film "I'll be there" by Pavel Ruminov. Maria Shalayeva played a mother dying of cancer there, she was also looking for new parents for the child and committed many impulsive acts. The film won the Kinotavr and was released in a short version, but there was still a long one when the heroine miraculously survived and tried to win her son back from new parents who also managed to love him. That's right, the picture was beautiful, but the difference is that Ruminov shot a lyrical and subtle melodrama, and the series "Chemistry between us" directed by Karina Chuvikova made a dynamic and life-affirming ... comedy!
Funny Sasha Bortich
Yes, most of the time the viewer will laugh, although there doesn't seem to be much to laugh about. Tanya turns out to be a chronic loser, and it's completely unclear how she even managed to get married, have children, and live in a marriage for many, apparently, very happy years. Similarly, it remains a mystery why, if her husband died in an accident, and Tanya was driving, she works as a taxi driver. It's unclear why she doesn't know how to use makeup, talk to people, and not lie at every turn. She came up with a fairy tale for her youngest son that dad was abducted by aliens three years ago, but it looks more like she was the one who was stolen, and a creature from another galaxy was planted in her head, which has a very rough idea of how everything works here.
It's difficult to believe in the heroine and the circumstances, but Sasha Bortich's talent grinds skepticism by the end of the first episode, and besides Efremov, Anton Filipenko, Pavel Vorozhtsov, Kuzma Kotrelev (by the way, the star of "Red Bracelets", which also has oncology) help her. A separate gift is Evgeny Sangadzhiev, who has recently been increasingly perceived as a director, but do not forget that, although he was a stage star, he appeared sporadically in films for the time being. The ensemble, plus a script with precise punch lines, plus a harsh editing that does not allow you to relax, is mostly the recipe for the success of the series.
Evgeny Sangadzhiev as the doctor
The main "ingredient" here, of course, is Bortich. Perhaps partly due to the efforts of makeup artists, but certainly not without personal involvement, she seems pale, excessively thin, angular and completely defenseless. Her eyes and lips are inflamed, her hair begins to fall out, and terrible pain begins, and taxi driver Tanya wants to remain a cheerful mother (the children don't know) and a sexy beauty (she needs to find a husband). On all fronts, Tanya is suffering a complete breakdown, she's losing money, wasting time, quarreling with her loved ones — it's a big professional secret how Bortich plays out this whole nightmare so that it's homeric funny. We laugh when she throws up in public and when her relatives charge her for babysitting. When Tanya is literally robbed in front of our eyes and when she comes to a friend's wake, even though she can't even drink to her death.
A shot from the series "Chemistry between us" with Sasha Bortich
Why are we laughing? Probably because of the optics. The dramaturgy, characters, and editing are arranged here in such a way that what is happening seems like something like a dream or a scam. We quickly begin to think about each character that he is not who he claims to be, and the authors of the series give us hints that we are right in our suspicions. This is how the drama turns into an anecdote, an adventurous comedy, a joke. We here, even when someone dies, still don't really believe it: most likely, it's a prank, a prank, and after a couple of episodes it turns out that he's actually alive.
This is an unexpected but very workable solution. So it turns out that Tanya may not have a terminal stage, and the doctor is not a doctor, and who knows, suddenly her husband was really abducted by aliens, and everything else is Brahma's dream, and when Brahma wakes up, this ghostly world will disappear. Therefore, there is nothing to worry about, you can relax. The only thing that bothers Tanya is that it really hurts at times, and Bortich plays this pain delicately, but at the same time mercilessly, so that the viewer is touched. And then there are jokes about her daughter's puberty, video games of a lovelace acquaintance, dating sites, crooks of all stripes.
A shot from the series "Chemistry between us"
It is difficult to film about modernity, and few people can, but in "Chemistry" this feeling of unreality, absurdity, paradox, improbability of what is happening, which is so familiar to today's people, is conveyed filigreously. If cancer is Tanya's diagnosis, then the inability to realize what is really happening and what is a phantom, a ghost, an obsession is already a diagnosis for the viewer. And the viewer easily agrees with this, changing the on-screen joke to what he considers his daily life. The one that he can't take seriously and not go crazy at the same time, from which he is protected by the same filter as in the series we are talking about today. There is chemistry between us, of course, but what kind of chemistry, what is its composition and, most importantly, what are the consequences, we (and suddenly?) may find out in the finale of the series.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
