''Tchaikovsky's Wife'' (russian: Жена Чайковского, Zhena Chaikovskogo) is a 2022 Russian

biographical drama film A biographical film or biopic () is a film that dramatizes the life of a non-fictional or historically-based person or people. Such films show the life of a historical person and the central character's real name is used. They differ from docudr ...

written and directed by

Kirill Serebrennikov Kirill Semyonovich Serebrennikov (russian: Кирилл Семёнович Серебренников; born 7 September 1969) is a Russian stage and film director and theatre designer. Since 2012, he has been the artistic director of the Gogol C ...

, starring Alyona Mikhaylova and Odin Biron. The film is a participant in the competition program of the

2022 Cannes Film Festival The 75th annual Cannes Film Festival is an upcoming film festival scheduled to take place from 17 to 28 May 2022. The festival will see a tribute to actor Tom Cruise, whose film '' Top Gun: Maverick'' is due to premiere at the festival. The off ...

Premise

Set in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

during the second half of the

19th century The 19th (nineteenth) century began on 1 January 1801 ( MDCCCI), and ended on 31 December 1900 ( MCM). The 19th century was the ninth century of the 2nd millennium. The 19th century was characterized by vast social upheaval. Slavery was abolis ...

, the film is about the wife of the composer

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popu ...

. She cannot accept her husband's

homosexuality Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to peop ...

and as a result, gradually loses her mind.

Cast

* Alyona Mikhaylova as

Antonina Miliukova Antonina Ivanovna Miliukova (russian: Антонина Ивановна Милюкова; – ) was the wife of Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky from 1877 until his death in 1893. After marriage she was known as Antonina Tchaikovskaya. ...

, Tchaikovsky's wife * Odin Biron as

Yuliya Aug Yuliya Arturovna Aug (russian: Юлия Артуровна Ауг; born 8 June 1970) is a Soviet and Russian actress. Her film credits include '' The Student'',

as a crazy old woman * Miron Fyodorov as

Nikolai Rubinstein Nikolai Grigoryevich Rubinstein (russian: Николай Григорьевич Рубинштейн; – ) was a Russian pianist, conductor, and composer. He was the younger brother of Anton Rubinstein and a close friend of Pyotr Ilyich Tc ...

Alexander Gorchilin Alexander Pavlovich Gorchilin (russian: Алекса́ндр Па́влович Горчи́лин; born March 3, 1992) is a Russian film and stage actor, voice actor and film director. Gained fame after playing roles in the TV series '' Daddy's ...

as Anatoliy Brandukov *

Filipp Avdeyev Filipp Vadimovich Avdeyev (russian: Фили́пп Вади́мович Авде́ев; born November 10, 1991) is a Russian actor and director. A graduate of the Moscow Art Theatre School. Since 2012 he has been an actor at the Gogol Center Thea ...

as a doctor * Varvara Shmykova * Vladimir Mishukov as Shlykov * Andrey Burkovsky as Vladimir Meshchersky * Maksim Emelyanov * Ekaterina Ermishina *

Viktor Khorinyak Viktor Viktorovich Khorinyak (russian: Ви́ктор Ви́кторович Хориня́к; born March 22, 1990) is a Russian actor. Artist of the after Anton Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre. Known for his role as the bartender Konstantin Anisimo ...

as Peter Jurgenson

Release

The film was presented at the

75th Cannes Film Festival The 75th annual Cannes Film Festival is an upcoming film festival scheduled to take place from 17 to 28 May 2022. The festival will see a tribute to actor Tom Cruise, whose film '' Top Gun: Maverick'' is due to premiere at the festival. The off ...

's main competition on May 18, 2022 (Day 2). In the context of the ongoing

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...

, European Film Academy president

Agnieszka Holland Agnieszka Holland (born 28 November 1948) is a Poles, Polish film and television director and screenwriter, best known for her political contributions to Polish cinema. She began her career as assistant to directors Krzysztof Zanussi and Andrzej ...

criticised the decision to screen a Russian film at the Cannes' main competition, noting that Kirill Serebrennikov "used he film's festival press conferenceto praise a Russian oligarch and compare the tragedy of Russian soldiers to Ukrainian defenders. I would not give him such a chance at this very moment".

Reception

Film critic

Zinaida Pronchenko Zinaida Sergeyevna Pronchenko (russian: Зинаи́да Серге́евна Про́нченко; born September 11, 1981, Leningrad) is a Russian film historian, film critic, and journalist. She is the Chief editor of Iskusstvo Kino's site si ...

negatively assessed the film: "One continuous ridiculous metaphor of the Russian world". ''Tchaikovsky's Wife'' has an approval rating of 83% on

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

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 ...

, based on 23 reviews, and an average rating of 6.2/10.

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 ...

assigned the film a weighted average score of 49 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".Tchaikovsky's Wife — Metacritic
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References

External links