Review: ‘The Present’: Even in Russia, It’s Hard to Turn 40
5 / 10
Ms. Blanchett does bring colorful shades of excitement to being bored. Her Anna plays a great game of dramatically uninterested chess, and her response to a rambling speech by Mikhail at the lunch table is priceless. (Hint: it involves the removal of an undergarment.) That comes just before that rip-roaring, scenery-destroying bacchanal I wrote about earlier. It's one of the most memorable party sequences I've ever seen, a volcanic channeling of a displaced class's fear, anger and disgust. These people want to blow up their world, and in a way they do, most entertainingly. That leaves us with another full hour of tediously sorting through the ashes.
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