The Fool

"The Fool" is a Russian drama film written and directed by Yuri Bykov, it follows a simple plumber who realises a larger problem while doing his job at a building, which is that this old dormitory is in danger of collapsing and burying over 800 inhabitants under its blocks.

In an unnamed 40 year old town in Russia, corruption, greed, and poverty overwhelms the population, with only a small minority consisting of the city's officials living life to the fullest, mainly due to them benefiting off of public works funding for themselves. In this world exists our main character Dima, played by Artyom Bystrov, who decides to take matters in his own hands and face the corrupt system.

Dima is an extremely likeable character who easily manages to make the audience root for him and his ambition, even though the rest of the world seems to think of him as a fool, and Artyom Bystrov does him justice by giving a fantastic performance, matter of fact, everyone without an exception gives an exceptional performance, which immensely helped at making the film more of an emotionally impactful experience.

There are other substantial qualities such as the director's capability at ably building tension, especially during the explosive climax, I was also very fond of the score, it merged pretty nicely with the icy and dark atmosphere that the film obtains.

The movie makes quite a few interesting statements that makes us question the world we're living in, but their delivery is what I'm actually disappointed by, unfortunately Yuri Bykov constantly keeps hitting us in the head by the main theme of his film, it's all for a good cause but more subtlety would of definitely increased the message's effect.

I have other minor complaints, such as the few noticeable technical errors, as well as the contradicting logic and actions of some characters, also, the writing could use a little bit of tweaking, but, despite all of the above, I still loved this movie, it successfully managed to do what it was supposed to do, which is to shake the viewer and raise his awareness.

The director intended for his film to be a morality lesson, not only to his country, but to everyone around the globe, and the fact that this lesson is wrapped in a pretty well made movie should be a huge and commendable achievement. This is a high Matinee.