''Natasha'' is a Canadian

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

, which premiered in 2015 before being released in Canada in 2016 and in the United States in 2017. The film was written and directed by

David Bezmozgis David Bezmozgis ( lv, Dāvids Bezmozgis; born 1973) is a Canadian writer and filmmaker, currently the head of Humber College's School for Writers. Life and career Educational background Born in Riga, Latvia, he came to Canada with his family ...

, based on the title story from his 2004 short story collection '' Natasha and Other Stories''.

Plot

Mark Berman, an idealistic

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

Canadian teenager in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

is seduced into a torrid affair by the mysteriously appearing but extremely ruthless Natasha, the daughter of his uncle Fima's new Russian

mail-order bride A mail-order bride is a woman who lists herself in catalogs and is selected by a man for marriage. In the twentieth century, the trend was primarily towards women living in developing countries seeking men in more developed nations. The majority ...

who has been living a double life as a sex worker since childhood. Although the original short story took place in the 1980s, for the film Bezmozgis updated the temporal setting to the present day in order to explore the impact of contemporary technology, such as the

internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

, on the story.

Cast

Alex Ozerov Alex Ozerov (born 1992) is a Canadian actor. He is most noted for his performance in the short film '' Pyotr495'', for which he won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Lead Performance in a Digital Program or Series at the 7th Canadian Screen Awar ...

as Mark Berman * Sasha K. Gordon as Natasha *

Lola Tash Lola Bridgette Tash (born September 4, 1995) is a Canadian actress. She portrays Gisela Calicos on ''Connor Undercover''. She starred as Chideh in the movie ''The Wild Girl'', as Robin on ''Rookie Blue'', Vicky in '' Reviving Ophelia'' and also ...

as Jana *

Aidan Shipley Aidan Shipley (born December 11, 1992) is a Canadian actor and filmmaker, most noted as co-director with Grayson Moore of the 2017 film ''Cardinals''.Brad Wheeler"Review: Cardinals is minimalist and uniquely structured" ''The Globe and Mail'', A ...

as Rufus *Deanna Dezmari as Bella *Pavel Tsitrinel as Meyer *Mila Kanev as Dora *Alla Kadysh as Faina *Igor Ovadis as Faina's uncle *Sergiy Kotelenets as Gena *John Mavro as Daniel *Jonathan Purdon as older pool guy *Grisha Pasternak as Vadim *Joshua Teixeira as kid 1 *Kylon Howell as kid 2

Release

The film premiered at the

Boston Jewish Film Festival The Boston Jewish Film Festival (BJFF) is an annual film festival that screens the best contemporary films on Jewish themes from around the world. The festival presents features, shorts, documentaries, and conversations with visiting artists in o ...

in November 2015, and was screened at several other film festivals before going into general commercial release in Canada in May 2016.

Awards

The film garnered two

Canadian Screen Award The Canadian Screen Awards (french: link=no, Les prix Écrans canadiens) are awards given for artistic and technical merit in the film industry recognizing excellence in Canadian film, English-language television, and digital media (web series) p ...

nominations at the

5th Canadian Screen Awards The 5th annual Canadian Screen Awards were held on March 12, 2017, to honour achievements in Canadian film, television, and digital media production in 2016. Nominations were announced on January 17, 2017. Awards in many of the technical categor ...

in 2017, for Best Actress (Gordon) and

Best Adapted Screenplay This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards. Best Actor/Best Actress *See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...

(Bezmozgis).

Reception

''Natasha'' scored an "Extremely Fresh" rating of 100% based on 11 critical reviews on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, with an average rating of 7.21/10. Based on 6 critics on

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, ''Natasha'' has a rank of 76 out of a 100, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Neil Genzlinger of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' wrote " he filmcreates a disturbing portrait of a girl turned calculating and nihilistic by her upbringing, and there is no coyness here". Peter Howell of ''

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part ...

'' had praised the film, saying that " tsucceeds because of its haunting lead performances". '' Variety''s Jessica Kiang wrote "

adapts his own short story into an impressively controlled coming of age tale animated by a cunning central performance". According to Tatiana Craine of ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...

'', "''Natasha'' is as beguiling and confounding as its title character". Tomris Laffly of ''

RogerEbert.com ''RogerEbert.com'' is an American film review website that archives reviews written by film critic Roger Ebert for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' and also shares other critics' reviews and essays. The website, underwritten by the ''Chicago Sun-Times' ...

'' said that "

he director He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

manages to summon something richer out of this tale you might temporarily feel you've been told before".

References

External links

*{{IMDb title, 3866526 2015 drama films 2015 films Canadian drama films English-language Canadian films Jewish Canadian films 2010s Canadian films