Review of Kolya (1996) by Pj P — 18 Jan 2010
Quite sweet film in the 'due to unforeseen circumstances grumpy lone male ends up looking after small child' genre. A lot of humour in the film is intended to be derived from the fact the five-year-old boy - Kolya - speaks only Russian and the adult only Czech - this does not translate well into sub-titles, although some of the hostility to Russians is apparent in the attitude of the 55-year-old protagonist's mother to the child - a reminder of the irrationality of prejudice for all of us (if a bit predictably simplistic).
It's a nice movie, I really enjoyed it, and it looks good - but it is a sad reflection on prevailing mainstream (i.e. American) taste that it was awarded the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 1997 and Golden Globe Best Foreign Language Film for 1996.
It is seriously nothing like a good enough movie for that.
This review of Kolya (1996) was written by Pj P on 18 Jan 2010.
Kolya has generally received very positive reviews.
Was this review helpful?
