2022-12-01 23:55:18
In the town of Kostomuksha, in the Far North, lives Evgeny Rudin (Artem Bystrov, best known for starring in the film The Fool and the TV series Trigger), a police investigator with an unpleasant personality, ethically dubious professional methods, and high crime detection rates. In his spare time, he, apparently without much success, tries to be a good husband for his wife Irina (Irina Verbitskaya, known from the TV series Rodina) and replace her father with her son from her first marriage, the eternally downcast teenager Artyom (Maxim Karushev, known TV series Happy End).
/Production company “Sreda”
On the birthday of his stepson, Rudin did not guess with the gift, he was jealous of the birthday boy for his own father (Daniil Vorobyov, known from the TV series “Trigger” and “Method-2”), he was offended by everyone and went to feel sorry for himself in a bar. While he was sitting there, sadly flicking his lighter, someone kills his wife, and in a very difficult way: immobilizing Irina with an injection of some antipsychotic, takes off her clothes and leaves her to freeze in the car. Together with his young assistant Masha (Elena Tronina, known for her main roles in the TV series Happy End and Aurora), who is in love with him, Rudin takes up the investigation. And the plural in the title of the series hints to the viewer that Irina is not the last to be frozen here.
Tired cynical investigator, sluggish and confusing action, dark secrets, overcast weather: created by the production company “Wednesday” (series “Patient Zero”, “Trigger”, “Foodstand”, etc.), the series “Frozen” is an obvious attempt to make ” Scandinavian noir” based on Russian material. Kazakh director Adilkhan Yerzhanov (his film The Affectionate Indifference of the World was shown at the Cannes Film Festival, and his films The Yellow Cat and Goliath in Venice) carefully creates the appropriate atmosphere. Dull high-rise buildings among the snow-capped mountains. Sterile gray half-empty interiors, which are enlivened by carefully placed bright objects – a red Soviet beater for rugs or a ridiculous shelf clock in the form of a trumpeter figurine. It is immediately clear that the decorator does not eat his bread in vain. There is almost always something glassy in the frame, something often leaks and drips from above. Alarming blinking and sometimes go out lighting devices. Snow is falling beautifully, in large flakes, and the polar lights drawn on the computer are staring blankly at the vicious world from the sky.
/Production company “Sreda”
Who is the killer here, the viewer is informed quite quickly, and further interest revolves around the question: why is he doing this? There is definitely a point to his actions – but what is it? In a good detective denouement, all the seemingly unrelated details should add up to a coherent picture in the only logical way, so that the viewer gasps: “So that’s how it is!” In Frozen, the authors try to achieve such an effect, but the resulting picture is all stitched together from implausible coincidences and dubious assumptions through which the screenwriter’s laziness is visible.
The series is a complete failure in terms of suspense, and you figure out the main plot trick long before they try to stun you with it. It is simply impossible not to guess, especially since the authors give a bold hint and literally hang it on the wall. For what? God knows. Goal-setting and logic here generally raise questions: the characters often do things that are strange and difficult to explain. Why is Rudin saying what he is saying now? How did he know this one was here? Why does that character suddenly fight to the death with this one – they don’t even know each other and don’t intersect in any way in history?
/Production company “Sreda”
Whether the director’s mismatch with the material or some other mismatch is to blame, there is often an unintended comic effect in Frozen, especially in seemingly tragic and emotionally charged moments. And what is absolutely suspicious, sometimes this effect seems quite deliberate, as if a good director Yerzhanov is gradually laughing at a pompous script. Well, it is certainly understandable.
This does not mean that Frozen cannot be enjoyed. It is very possible, the main thing is to endure the first two series. Then the story acquires, if not harmony, then at least an understandable direction, and it becomes really curious where it will all lead in the end.
The most boring storyline here is with the teenager Artem, who endlessly maneuvers between his own and adoptive fathers and manages to declare to everyone: “You are nobody to me!” The artist Bystrov, as expected by the genre, plays an imperfect policeman, but instead of Harry Hole or, say, Dirty Harry, he predictably gets a typical investigator from the NTV crime series. The artist does not add anything new to this already almost folklore and hackneyed image, except for nervous tics and vague hints of mental instability.
The rest were more fortunate: there are a lot of bright images in “Frozen” – starting with the boy Mitya (Vladimir Kanukhin, known from “Millionaire from Balashikha”) and ending with the minor urka Sidorov (Evgeny Salnikov, known from the film “Closeness”). Everyone, of course, overacts a little (and some – a lot), but there is no way without it: in all seriousness, it is sometimes simply impossible to pronounce the lines written for the actors. The only one who succeeds is Elena Tronina, who, without falling into a farce, makes an interesting and full-fledged character out of her empty heroine (a beautiful reasoner, an appendage to the main character). And thanks to which this confused, albeit entertaining, detective parable about guilt and redemption can really be perceived as a story about living sad people hopelessly frozen in a distant snow-covered city.
#Frozen #stirring #snow #spoon #Vedomosti