Two Women (Russian: Две женщины, Dve zhenshchiny) is a 2014 Russian drama film directed by Vera Glagoleva, starring Ralph Fiennes and Sylvie Testud. It is based on Ivan Turgenev's 1872 play A Month in the Country (originally written as Two Women in 1855). The film received mixed reviews from critics.

Two Women
Film poster
Directed byVera Glagoleva
Screenplay bySvetlana Grudovich
Olga Pogodina-Kuzmina
Based onA Month in the Country
1872 play
by Ivan Turgenev
Produced byNatalya Ivanova
StarringAnna Brenner-Vartanyan
Ralph Fiennes
Aleksandr Baluev
CinematographyGints Berzins
Edited byAleksandr Amirov
Music bySergei Banevich
Production
company
Horosho Production House
Release date
  • August 2014 (2014-08) (Window to Europe Film Festival)[1]
Running time
117 minutes
CountryRussia
LanguageRussian
Budget€ 2,860,000

Plot

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At the heart of the play lies the love quadrangle. Natalya Petrovna, the wife of the rich landowner Arkady Sergeich Islaev, falls in love with Alexey Nikolayevich Belyaev - a student, teacher Kolya Islaeva.

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Rakitin - a friend of the family, has long loved Natalya Petrovna. Verochka - a pupil of Natalya Petrovna also falls in love with Kolya's teacher. Belyaev and Rakitin eventually leave the estate ...

Cast

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  • Anna Vartanyan-Astrakhantseva (ru) as Natalya Petrovna Islaeva
  • Ralph Fiennes as Mikhail Aleksandrovich Rakitin
  • Aleksandr Baluev as Arkady Sergeich Islaev
  • Sylvie Testud as Elisavetta Bogdanovna
  • Anna Levanova as Verochka
  • Nikita Volkov as Alexey Nikolayevich Belyaev
  • Larisa Malevannaya as Anna Semenovna Islaeva
  • Bernd Moss as Schaaf
  • Sergey Yushkevich as Ignaty Shpigelsky
  • Vasiliy Mishchenko as Bolshentsov
  • Anna Nahapetova as Katya

Reception

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Two Women has an approval rating of 89% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 9 reviews, and an average rating of 6.00/10.[2] It also has a score of 54 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 4 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[3]

Clarence Tsui of The Hollywood Reporter wrote:

Fiennes' superficial turn (in more ways than one, as his lines ended up overdubbed by a Russian voice actor) is hampered more by circumstances than ability: rather than playing on the multiple possibilities underlining Turgenev's once-transgressive comedy of manners, actress-turned-filmmaker Vera Glagoleva's 21st century take is a po-faced, straitjacketed affair, as she (and her screenwriters Svetlana Grudovich and Olga Pogodina-Kuzima) play out the entangled relationships as excessively affected period drama. While certainly lushly mounted, Two Women is at best a piece of dated heritage cinema, and at worst cliche-ridden pomp.[4]

Awards and nominations

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The film won the Best Feature Film award at the 3rd Hanoi International Film Festival.

References

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  1. ^ Blaney2014-08-05T11:08:00+01:00, Martin. "Depardieu's Viktor to premiere in Russia". Screen.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ "Two Women (Mesyats v derevne) (2014)" – via www.rottentomatoes.com.
  3. ^ "Two Women". Metacritic.
  4. ^ Tsui, Clarence (2014-09-18). "'Two Women' ('Dve Zhenshchiny'): Vladivostok Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2016-06-28.
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