This film played on the assumptions many people make about big cities. Big cities equals big opportunity. Lyudmila puts this into perspective best when she describes Moscow as the lottery. Lyudmila was the type of character that is always looking to the future. She deeply believes in the need have wealth and all the amenities known to mankind. A very superficial person in other words. She was constantly lying to men and to herself. I thought she was very self-serving because she wanted to marry for money and not for love.
Antonina was the friend that ended up with the ideal relationship and the ideal family. She was not concerned with worldly possessions and was a good friend to the other two girls. She wasn't really focused on throughout the movie. Her husband Nikolai had more of an impact on the movie than she did. Nikolai brought Gosha back to Katya.
Katya, the most lost out of the three girls. At the beginning of the movie she had no direction. She wanted a man like Antonina had, but she listened to Lyudmila a little too much. Granted she did want to be a chemist at the beginning of the movie but that obviously didn't pan out. She's the only one to blame for having a kid as a single person. Some blame to does fall on Rodion for starting the whole thing, but his ultimate character flaw comes out later. For him not to help support Katya at all is the biggest crime. He didn't even try to be around for the upbringing of the child until he found out what a success Katya was. I also thought that Rodion's mother should have been upset at her son than she was. Yeah, Katya did lie, but you can't make a baby by yourself.
I couldn't believe that Katya was sleeping with another married man though. When that secret came out, any sympathy I had for her vanished. She was lost even with all the success she had in her professional life. Gosha was the best thing that happened to her.
Then in the second half the movie, along comes Gosha. The actor that played him pulled off the character perfectly. I think Gosha was just what Katya and Sasha needed. They both needed him. Katya desperately needed someone to confide in, you can't cry yourself to sleep forever and be healthy. Sasha needed Gosha because she needed a father. The best part about Gosha was how matter of fact he was. He added a lot to the movie and to the family.
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You're right that in a sense Antonina's situation ends up very well--she has a stable husband and they end up having a rather sizable family (three children was a lot during Soviet times!). On the other hand, there is a little bit of simplicity in her situation--simply becoming a factory worker along with her husband. Whereas Katya, while she sinks to emotional lows that Antonina doesn't, also proves more capable of reaching heights--in terms of becoming a director at work and ultimately finding a very unusual and interesting husband (not to take anything away from Kolya--who you simply do have to love for his role in bringing Gosha back to the fold).
ReplyDeleteI agree with you completely about the positive role Gosha has on the daughter Alexandra. We don't see a lot of her beforehand, but from what we do she seems to have turned into a bit of a sullen, ungrateful and spoiled brat. You can tell that this is the first time someone has told her to help her mother out with something--and that incredible scene out there in the park at the picnic shows us (I think) the first moments in her life that she may have been genuinely happy.