Death and Comedy

Though it didn't get a wide release in theaters earlier this year, I was eager to see The Death of Stalin. The release was so "narrow," however, that it don't believe it ever actually played anywhere near me. (And chances are you haven't even heard of it.) It's now come to the various video formats, though, and I was able to catch up.

The Death of Stalin is a satire from writer-director Armando Iannucci, the creator of HBO's Veep. Set in 1953 Soviet Russia, the film tells you what it is right in the title. In the aftermath of Joseph Stalin's death, we watch his immediate underlings vie (clumsily) for power, struggling (humorously) against each other to seize the reins.

Veep isn't "lightning in a bottle." In fact, I became aware of Iannucci first through his film In the Loop. (This itself was a movie conclusion/continuation of his TV series The Thick of It -- essentially the British precursor to Veep. That's still a show I want to make time for.) If anything, I was hoping here for the high hilarity of In the Loop in a Russian setting. My expectations were set far too high.

There are a few moments of cringe-worthy humor in The Death of Stalin -- some good old-fashioned physical comedy with the dictator's dead body, some ridiculous jockeying for literal position over who will stand where at his funeral. But mostly, The Death of Stalin felt like an exceedingly dry movie. Much of the comedy is dark, dark, dark -- people fretting over whether or not they'll be rounded up and/or shot. (And many of them often see their fears come true.) It's not generally laugh-out-loud fare. "You may think things today are bad, but they're not THIS bad" isn't really the brand of entertainment I was signing up for.

This film comes out bleak despite the presence and efforts of many funny people trying to lighten the proceedings. The cast includes Steve Buscemi, Michael Palin, Jeffrey Tambor, and Jason Isaacs. It also includes many people you'd know best (if you know them at all) from quite serious roles, people like Simon Russell Beale (Penny Dreadful) and Rupert Friend (Homeland). They play broad, but the script doesn't generate enough belly laughs to bubble up through a relentlessly dark landscape.

In the end, I simply didn't like this film. It had a few moments, to be sure -- but I thought my sense of humor accommodated dark, and this film was too dark for me. If you like your comedy dry and black as night, you might just love this movie. I found it a D+ at best. The Death of Stalin is only for a very select few.