Station for Two (1982)

Pretty Good

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Blistering performances.

If there was one allowable criticism one could make for A Railway Station for Two it would be the pace at which the main character, Platon Ryabinin, transforms himself from a "city-slicker" to a man quite comfortable with his surroundings in about no time at all. Even so, it's eminently forgivable when the romance between Vera and Platon is contingent on Ryabinin's adaptability, and the exposure the film gives to a detailed picture of Soviet life and its many idiosyncrasies.Although the love story is predominately what drives the pace and rhythm of the film, other sub-themes regularly permeate the main story. Profiteering, the law and justice or the lack thereof, and social stances on gender equality dominate. Irony such as the following suffuses the story line: "Life depends not on those who are in charge, but those on duty." Or "why do you want to know what you'd better not know?" And then there is the acceptance of the vagaries and injustices of life: "Good people are always unlucky." The story explores with a light, comedic touch two people from wildly different backgrounds, a pianist and a waitress, who meet accidentally at a train station. Platon is on his way to Siberia after taking the rap for a car accident in which his wife hits and kills a man who was possibly suicidal anyway. Vera 's husband has just walked out on her after committing adultery and announcing it on the apartment building's intercom. She then takes up with a black market profiteer until she and Platon meet. Their relationship becomes a study in how people from opposing backgrounds can still fall in love and take a chance despite the heartbreaks life throws at them. What is critical to this beautifully rendered film is that despite the difficulties inherent In Soviet everyday life because of the system, everyone holds no grudges and tries to work together to overcome the bureaucratic stupidities. The film's most explicit point is that no one knows what anything, including themselves, is really worth to someone else. Whether its melons, carburetors or love, anything is possible in this witty, sometimes sad, and ultimately triumphant film.

i watch the actors, lyudmila as vera in particular, and i wish they could make more films that i could access. meryl streep, whom i like very much, hasn't got a thing on lyudmila; this is one vibrant and vivid actress with a face the camera loves to love.the movie seemed very french to me; my wife thought Italian. at any rate it is not an American film. the sensibility is far more oblique and understated. i recall a stephen rea film about the ussr where he is a detective tracking down a serial killer; i think that movie really tries to portray what life must be like in Russia, but finally it is really just a cliché when compared to this film. this movie breathes 'other' and we must switch gears to attempt to see who these folk are and what they are about. a very fine bit of film making that satisfies all the way thru.

I keep this movie on the top of my favorite Soviet movies. Typical Russian dark humor and sharply piercing plots, right into heart of human love.No other director has done so well in the balancing popularity and literary art. The beauty is plain, but keeps coming back to your memory.I grow up in China but and this title is imprinted into my memory of the wandering time, a seemingly peaceful time, with undercurrent of our human fates in the vast system, and hence the life without a border.Centrel Russia ( west Siberia) has never been so vivid, and never be so warm. It requires some traveling in the vast inland to fully understand the beauty.

A pianist, whose wife had killed someone in a traffic accident, decides to go to Siberian jail in her place. On his way to Siberia, he has a train stopover at a small town railway station, where he met a train attendant. In a few days,they became good friends and had lots of fun together. 10 years later, one day in the jail, the man receives a message saying that his wife is coming to see him.........I first saw this movie when I was 12 years old. The memory is still vivid. If you like A bridge on the Madison County, you will probably like this movie. It's one of Ryazanov's love trilogy. A must for Ryazanov fans.