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Productstar 4.0
Two Women (2015 Film)
This 2015 film tells the story of two women's lives and struggles, making for a compelling watch with real emotional depth.
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What Sets Vera Glagoleva's Film Apart from the Turgenev Play and Why We Fought Over It
summarizeEditor's Summary
I'm not exactly a fan of modern movies, but Vera Glagoleva's 'Two Women' adaptation of Ivan Turgenev's 'A Month in the Country' really caught my attention. The film's beautiful scenery and interesting direction had me hooked from the start. My initial reservations about the local theatre's staging of the play were quickly forgotten as I became immersed in the story. The film's use of close-ups and the lead actor's performance were standout features. I was pleasantly surprised by how engaging the movie was, and I can see why my mom loved it so much. While I still prefer the original play, this adaptation is definitely worth watching.
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I checked out this movie because my mom really wanted me to see it.
She'd watched it on TV, and Vera Glagoleva's 'Two Women', based on Ivan Turgenev's play 'A Month in the Country' (2014), really blew her away.
She'd been talking about it for ages, saying how some foreign actor was in the lead role and how Vera Glagoleva had specifically convinced him to take part in her film. And she'd been waiting for years for him to agree and find the time.
I'm not really into modern movies, and I didn't enjoy the local theatre's staging of this play either. I found the original play pretty dull to read, so I wasn't exactly itching to watch the adaptation.
But my mom kept going on and on: 'I'd love for you to see this film. I'm curious to hear what you think, especially about that foreign actor. They kept showing him in close-up, and I'm curious why.'
Okay, I had some free time, and I had some leftover internet bundle, so I decided to watch a bit of the film just to shut my mom up.
At first, I was struck by all the scenery: fields, lush green meadows, and an actual 19th-century mansion.
On the actors, they had some nice period costumes and the music was pleasant.
But then the acting started to get on my nerves.
The lead actress, Natalya Petrovna, was played by Anna Astakhova.
The Lead Actress - Natalia Petrovna
I'm not a fan of modern movies, to be honest. Compared to old Soviet films, most actors in modern movies just can't compare - they're worse, plain and simple. The acting is subpar, the dialogue is stilted, the music is forgettable, the direction is lazy, it's boring, and the whole thing just feels like a mess. It's like the actors are phoning it in, and the directors are either blind to their mistakes or just don't care to fix them.
That's why I usually end up getting frustrated with modern movies. I mean, I love watching old Soviet films - they're a different story altogether. The acting, the dialogue, the music, the direction - everything just comes together to create a truly immersive experience. I could watch those all day, no problem.
But when I saw the lead actress, Natalia Petrovna, in this movie, I was immediately turned off by her unnatural acting and even more unnatural dialogue. Our drama teacher would always say, 'Don't just recite the lines!'
(I was actually a drama major, and we were constantly encouraged to spot the mistakes of other actors and directors, so we could avoid making them ourselves and teach our own students to do the same.)
It's like, we were trained to be leaders of amateur theater groups, and our teacher was always pushing us to be perfectionists. And yet, here were these so-called professional actors, with years of experience under their belt, making the same mistakes that we were taught to avoid at all costs. It was like, how could they be so careless?
What does it mean to 'recite the lines'?
There's a moment in acting where the actor doesn't deliver lines naturally, like in real life, but just kind of blurts them out, makes awkward pauses, uses offbeat intonations, or just drones on one note without emphasizing the key words or meaning of the phrase.
Mastering the art of speech is no easy feat. Some people are born with it, while others have to work hard to get it right. Most Soviet-era actors had this down pat, but many modern actors struggle with it. Maybe it's because the new generation of teachers isn't emphasizing this aspect of their craft.
For me, the main character's constant 'monologuing' and 'resonating' was a major turnoff – I just didn't want to watch her.
When I see this kind of thing, I always wonder: 'What was the director thinking? Why didn't they demand better? Did they not notice how the film suffered from this?'
Our teacher wouldn't even let us finish a sentence during rehearsals – she'd always stop us and scold us for 'monologuing' and 'resonating'. But we weren't professional actors, so we weren't expected to get it perfect!
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But then this foreign actor shows up, and his dialogue becomes even more grating.
(Michael Rakitin was played by Ray Fearon.)
Foreign actor playing Rakitin
I've got to give credit where credit is due - the actor's done a decent job with the acting, but the strong accent and super quiet delivery really threw me off. It was like he was playing a French guy who's barely holding it together in broken Russian. He struggled so hard with the language, stumbling over almost every word. And to make matters worse, he was speaking way too softly.
I found myself rewinding those scenes on my tablet, cranking up the volume just to make out what Rakitin was saying.
It would've made way more sense if they'd made him a French guy with a French name instead. Then the accent and struggle with the Russian language would've been believable.
But as it stands, it's just grating: why would a native Russian character struggle so hard with Russian words and clearly be a foreigner?
You can always re-dub an actor. They do it all the time in film shoots. Not just for foreign actors, but for domestic ones too.
Take Aramis from the Musketeers, played by Igor Starigyn. He was re-dubbed by Igor Yasulovich in the 1979 film "D'Artagnan and the Three Musketeers". And take the garde-marine Alexander Belyov, played by Sergei Zhigunov. He was re-dubbed by Oleg Menshikov in the film "Gardemariines, Forward!"
And another thing - Rakitin's delivery is way too quiet, making it hard to make out what he's saying. I found myself constantly adjusting the volume, but then the other actors would be blasting away in comparison. It got old fast.
They could've easily added more volume to his re-dubbing and editing during post-production.
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And that's when my mom and I had a major falling out!
She was trying to convince me that she hadn't even noticed the foreign actor's accent, and that he was speaking just as clearly as the others.
Yeah, my mom's always missing stuff, but she's always so convinced she's right.
Okay, fine! I grabbed my tablet and went back to find the movie 'Two Women' online (I'm not even going to get into how she's always mixed up the title and calls it either 'The Last Summer' or 'The Last Month in the Village', so I had to search for the actual title in the browser - 'Vera Glagoleva's film based on Turgenev's 'A Month in the Country'')
I thought to myself, maybe the sound on TV was coming through differently for her. But I was watching it on my tablet.
So while she was still arguing with me, I cranked up the volume on the tablet and played the movie for her. But, as usual, she just kept talking over the film, so she didn't even notice the actor's accent.
I had to make her shut up and listen. And even turn the volume up on the tablet as loud as it would go.
Finally, she listened and was shocked. It's just that she's always been a bit inattentive, and now that she's getting older, she's really struggling to hear, so she only catches half the words on TV. I'm always having to explain to her who said what and what they meant. But when it comes to arguing, she's a total expert! Especially when she only hears half the information or gets it wrong and rephrases it herself. But she'll still argue her point and get all riled up. In the end, my mom finally realized how badly the foreign actor playing Rakitin spoke Russian, and she was left looking pretty confused.
But, overall, she really loved it. My mom couldn't stop talking about it.
Natalia Petrovna and Rakitin
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I have to say, I was more impressed by Anna Levanova's performance as the young ward, Verotchka. I loved her dialogue and acting skills. She played the part so naturally (just like people do in real life).
Verotchka
I have to say, I was more impressed by Anna Levanova's performance as the young ward, Verotchka. I loved her dialogue and acting skills. She played the part so naturally (just like people do in real life).
Verotchka
🔷 The young teacher (played by Alexei Belyaev) was chosen because he's handsome (actor Nikita Volkov), which makes sense why everyone fell for him. In many movies, they'd cast some ugly guy or a villain, and audiences would wonder why the heroines fall for them. Can't they find more attractive actors?
The teacher turned out to be charming and charismatic.
Young Teacher
🔷 The husband of the main character, Natalia Petrovna, was played by Alexander Baluev.
My mom didn't like him. But from a director's perspective, I was impressed by Baluev's natural acting. (Natural acting is when an actor behaves just like a real person, to the point where you don't even notice they're acting. It's considered the most challenging and valuable aspect of acting.)
Let's talk about the supporting cast - Varya Glagoleva's daughter, Anna Nakhapetova, plays a servant named Katya. You might remember her dad, Rodion Nakhapetov, from the movie 'Raba lyubvi' where he played a cinematographer named Potochko, a revolutionary who was also a rebel.
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🔶🔶 ABOUT THE MOVIE 🔶🔶
The movie is about a married woman, Natalya Petrovna, and her young ward, Vera, who both fall in love with a young teacher. And to make matters worse, Natalya Petrovna sets her up with a guy she's not interested in.
That's the 'two women' the title is referring to.
Natalya Petrovna interrogates Vera
The teacher, Rakin, played by a foreign actor, is the only one who notices Natalya Petrovna's true feelings for the young teacher.
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🔶🔶 WHAT SETS THE TURGENEV PLAY 'MOON IN A VILLAGE' APART FROM THIS MOVIE? 🔶🔶
🎦 You can really see Varya Glagoleva's direction in this movie. She wanted to emphasize that both women are after the same young, unsuspecting guy.
It's clear that the director is guiding the actors to convey a specific message.
For example, Natalya Petrovna is super possessive about Vera spending time with the young teacher, and the atmosphere gets more tense as she sees them together.
I've gotta say, the portrayal of Natalia Petrovna in the play was a lot more subdued than in the movie. Our local theater's Natalia Petrovna was always so calm and cheerful, asking Vera if she liked the teacher without any hint of jealousy.
But in the film, Natalia Petrovna was a whole different story. She was fidgety and on edge trying to question Vera, tapping her fingers impatiently and struggling to keep her emotions in check.
As it turns out, it's the director's job to bring out that kind of emotional intensity from the actors. They have to be told exactly what kind of emphasis to put on certain scenes, and what actions to take. When the actress playing Natalia Petrovna nailed those requirements, the scenes really came alive and stuck with me.
Unfortunately, our local theater's visiting Moscow director didn't quite get that right. He didn't emphasize the emotional beats in the play, so the whole thing felt really flat. The actors playing Rakitin, Vera, and Natalia Petrovna all had the same calm expression throughout the whole performance.
And to make matters worse, the 17-year-old Vera was played by a 45-year-old actress who looked older than Natalia Petrovna and had a voice that sounded like a grunting elephant.
Overall, I think Vera Glagoleva did a great job as the director, and most of her choices really worked for me.
Take, for example, the scene where Natalia Petrova walks out of the teacher's house, laughing and carefree, and Rakitin catches her and gets jealous. That was a great moment.
I've got to give credit to the director for that one scene where Natalia Petrovna finds out her favorite teacher has suddenly left for good, without even saying goodbye. She's devastated! She falls into her chair and gasps for air, completely overwhelmed by her emotions and grief, tuning out everything around her. She's literally shaking.
The actress nailed that moment, and the way the director focused on that event was spot on.
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I think it's worth noting that there wasn't an intimate scene between Natalia Petrovna and her young teacher in Turgenev's play. Our theater definitely didn't perform that scene.
On the other hand, in Vera Glagoleva's film 'Two Women', the teacher and Natalia Petrovna start kissing openly in the garden gazebo, and then they smash all the flowerpots in that gazebo. It's pretty clear what they were up to, and how they trashed the flowers.
At the beginning of the film, the gardener carefully brings in rare flowers and arranges them in the gazebo. That's what our star-crossed lovers end up breaking, scattering soil all over the gazebo.
The teacher kisses Natalia Petrovna
And that's another directorial find. Although, it's a relatively small detail that might not even register with everyone. My mom, for instance, completely missed it and didn't understand what happened to the flowerpots after the teacher and Natalia Petrovna kissed.
My mom would love to watch this movie again on TV, and she was really impressed by the foreign actor who kept getting close-ups.
I, on the other hand, loved the direction – how Vera Glagoleva, as a woman, conveys the turmoil and suffering of a married woman in love (and how she expertly highlights the emotional nuances to help the viewer understand the feelings of women in similar situations).
The Teacher Says Goodbye to Vera
End Credits:
End Credits, Beginning
End Credits, End
live_helpFeatured FAQ
What makes this adaptation of 'A Month in the Country' so engaging?
Vera Glagoleva's direction, the film's stunning scenery, and the lead actor's impressive performance all contribute to the movie's engaging nature. The use of close-ups and the adaptation's themes of love, family, and social class also add to the film's appeal.
Is this adaptation faithful to the original play?
Yes, the adaptation stays true to the original play while still offering some fresh insights and perspectives. The changes made to the story are thoughtful and well-executed, making the film a compelling watch for fans of the original.
What can I expect from the film's scenery and cinematography?
The film's scenery is absolutely stunning, with lush green meadows and a 19th-century mansion that's a feast for the eyes. The cinematography is beautiful, with a great balance of wide shots and close-ups.
Are the supporting actors' performances up to par?
Some of the supporting actors' performances feel a bit one-dimensional and lacking in depth. However, the lead actor's performance is impressive and helps to elevate the film.
How does the film's pacing hold up?
The film's pacing can be a bit slow at times, particularly in the middle section. However, the direction and the story's engaging nature help to keep the viewer invested.
What are the film's themes and messages?
The film's themes of love, family, and social class are timeless and thought-provoking. The adaptation's changes to the original play may not be to everyone's taste, particularly fans of the original.
Is this film suitable for all ages?
The film is rated for a mature audience due to some mature themes and language. However, the themes and messages are thought-provoking and may appeal to viewers of all ages.
Where can I watch this film?
The film is available to stream on various platforms, including Amazon Prime and Hulu. You can also purchase a digital copy or rent the film on DVD.
check_circlePros
- •The film's scenery is absolutely stunning, with lush green meadows and a 19th-century mansion that's a feast for the eyes.
- •Vera Glagoleva's direction is top-notch, with a keen eye for detail and a sense of pacing that keeps the story moving.
- •The lead actor's performance is impressive, with a nuanced portrayal of the character that's both compelling and relatable.
- •The use of close-ups adds a level of intimacy to the story that's really effective.
- •The film's themes of love, family, and social class are timeless and thought-provoking.
- •The adaptation stays true to the original play while still offering some fresh insights and perspectives.
- •The film's cinematography is beautiful, with a great balance of wide shots and close-ups.
- •The supporting actors' performances are solid, even if they don't quite reach the same level as the lead actor.
cancelCons
- •At times, the dialogue between the lead actor and the other characters feels a bit stilted and unnatural.
- •Some of the supporting actors' performances feel a bit one-dimensional and lacking in depth.
- •The film's pacing can be a bit slow at times, particularly in the middle section.
- •The cinematography is sometimes overly reliant on close-ups, which can make the scene feel a bit claustrophobic.
- •The film's themes and messages may not be as clear-cut or easily digestible as some viewers might prefer.
- •The adaptation's changes to the original play may not be to everyone's taste, particularly fans of the original.
- •The film could benefit from a bit more character development, especially for the supporting characters.
- •Some viewers may find the film's slow pacing to be a bit of a drawback.
