This movie is second try to bring on screen story of Yuriy Korotkov "Amerikanka", a nostalgic story about love 1970's in rural area of Soviet Union. Naturally it have bell bottom jeans, music, vehicles of the era and also communistic elements of life. Main character is Lyoshka (shortened version for Alexei name) a late teenager and story of his first love. His love interest is Tan'ka (shortened version of name Tatiana) former girlfriend of his freshly past away brother. That means we have all signs of teenage drama: fights, night crimes, masturbation etc.
The whole thing could work if not one thing. The movie based on same story was already made 16 years before that. It's called Amerikanka. And it was better on many aspects. But main one it's that 1997 was closer to 1977 way more than 2013. At least main actors went in Soviet schools in their childhood, so they worshiped grandpa Lenin as well as their characters and experienced socialistic lacks of products and queues for them.
The newer version is way more vanilla and studio. The actors of newer version is media faces well known for their works on TV in sitcoms etc. But not really fitting on roles due their looks. I'd recommend the version of 1997.
The whole thing could work if not one thing. The movie based on same story was already made 16 years before that. It's called Amerikanka. And it was better on many aspects. But main one it's that 1997 was closer to 1977 way more than 2013. At least main actors went in Soviet schools in their childhood, so they worshiped grandpa Lenin as well as their characters and experienced socialistic lacks of products and queues for them.
The newer version is way more vanilla and studio. The actors of newer version is media faces well known for their works on TV in sitcoms etc. But not really fitting on roles due their looks. I'd recommend the version of 1997.
