The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath! (1975)

I love this movie so much

Good concept, poorly executed.

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This is an awful movie. Here's the story: the shy middle-aged surgeon Zhenya Lukashin lives in Moscow and plans to marry for the first time in his life. He tells his girlfriend Katya that he was going to marry another woman a few years ago, but on the very last moment he fled to Leningrad because he didn't really want to be married. Jerk alert! He half-heartedly tells Katya that he won't do that to her.On New Year's Eve, he goes to the sauna with his friends and gets drunk. He soon forgets that he has a fiancée. One of his friends has to go to Leningrad to celebrate New Year with his significant other. He and Lukashin are so drunk they fall asleep, while the other two friends don't remember who is supposed to fly. So they stuff Lukashin into a plane.He arrives in Leningrad and is helped off the plane by a grumpy fellow passenger. He annoys and embarrasses another passenger with his stupid drunk behavior and takes a cab home. He almost pisses himself and calls for his mother, before miraculously opening the door with his own key. He has no idea what happened and falls asleep. (the context here is that the Soviet state built lots of identical-looking houses, gave the streets in different cities the same names and that people had similar-looking stuff in their homes. Never mind that this is the definition of an industrialized country).Somewhat later, the home's owner, Nadya, returns. She is blonde, tall, slim and pretty. She is shocked to find a drunk stranger in her bed and tries to remove him, but barely manages to make him understand what happened before her own fiancé, Ippolit, arrives. Ippolit is serious and old-fashioned. He doesn't believe the story about how Lukashin ended up in Leningrad and opened Nadya's door with his key. He thinks Nadya is cheating on him and leaves in anger.Nadya and Lukashin get to know each other and fall in love. Nadya turns out to be a teacher of Russian language and literature and tells that she had an affair with a married man for 10 years. Ippolit loses all respect for himself and is entertains suicidal thoughts. As for Katya, we don't even learn what happens to her.I used to like this movie when I was younger but now it makes me sick. The actors who play Nadya and Zhenya are blonde and angelic-looking, while Katya and Ippolit are depicted as dark, sour, old-fashioned and repulsive. The message is clear: it's a virtue to be at the mercy of your impulses like a leaf in the wind. It means that you're a child of Eden, whose soul hasn't been corrupted by our sick society. Conversely, being sober, conscientious, concerned and reliable, trying to control yourself and your life, having expectations from yourself and from others, makes you a miserable sellout who needs to be put in their place. Expect a friendly punishment from your friends, who are trying to help you. It's for your own good. Never resist any impulse, whether from within or without, whether your own or other people's. Whatever comes your way, be nice and go along with it.The movie contradicts itself by depicting society as controlling and repressive and forgetting about this fact when it suits the story. In 1970, the Soviet government made passport checks mandatory on planes, so it was impossible to travel with somebody else's ticket in 1975. Even before that, drunk individuals weren't allowed to travel by plane. And why didn't Nadya call the police when she discovered a drunk stranger in her bed? Also, it's impossible for somebody this drunk to sober up in 2- 3 hours.There's nothing original about the story. Weak, clueless, selfish losers have always tried to make themselves look humble, sensitive, spiritual, artistic and philosophical, while trying to make hard-working and responsible people feel stupid and guilty for being "boring".In my opinion, the only good things about his movie are the song "Over my street" by Alla Pugacheva and the poem in the end. Everything else is saccharine, mind-numbing propaganda for stupidity, selfishness and depravity.

Apparently this film has been shown every year in Russia for decades, and people there know it by heart. This was my first time seeing it -- without that cultural hyperfamiliarity -- and it was very easy to see why it's so popular -- it's hugely entertaining. It's about three hours long, but hardly felt like an hour. There's a perfect absurdist farce premise of a man who ends up in an identical prefab apartment with his own at the same address (which also, it has been pointed out, could easily be taken as a comment on the sameness of Soviet architecture of the time). That farce plays out fantastically but then, after the clock has struck 12 on New Year's Eve with our protagonist in the wrong city, we keep following these people and become invested in serious hopelessness of their situations. In essence, it takes what could be a good basic bedroom farce, arms it with legitimately likable, interesting characters we want to follow, and more or less keeps them in a room overnight. The small cast is a blessing here. It's a winning formula of goofiness crossed with seriousness. The jealous Ippolit, for instance, looks ridiculous showering drunkenly with his clothes on, but when he goes out that way into the freezing night saying that perhaps he wants to catch cold and die the feeling of seriousness dissipates. Overall, incredibly likable and entertaining. The music is good, and the theme of not boxing life in with rules and accepting happy accidents is welcome. If it's phenomenally popular, I'd say it seems to be rightly so.

as watching this movie has become a tradition each new year in Latvia (ex soviet country) i have seen it a lot of times and enjoyed each time. i think that this movie gives a wonderful time while watching and really amazes with the sense of humor. The title is more than perfect for this movie! Another thing that amazes me is the way how the system of Soviet Union is shoved. All the situations are unpredictable.. and one can really enjoy the characters and the way how they solute their problems.. i really think that people who will watch it, will enjoy it. of course the quality might not be as good as nowadays, but respect- this movie is more than 25 years old! so- go on folks- and watch it!

This is a great film.First of all it's a great story that combines elements of subtle satire, romance, and at times laugh-outloud comedy into a farcical love triangle. Second is the great acting. Andrei Myagkov simply delivers a character who undergoes significant, yet somehow believable transformation from a shy, nerdy young doctor to a bold, at times arrogant, yet at the same time romantic man. A great comic performance by Yuri Yakovlev, as the jealous fiance of the heroine, alone makes the film worth watching, to the last moments.The 3rd element is the music and poetry. The songs are an important part of narration, not just there for a backdrop. The song lyrics and the poetry are by some of the most prominent Russian poets of the Silver Age and are just plain beautiful. In short this an amazing film, one of those that can be watched over and over.Finally, if you don't speak Russian, check this film on DVD(NTSC). I recently got it and was very impressed by the quality of translation offered by the subtitles, which provide translation of the songs as well as the dialogue.