At first, I thought I was seeing a rough cut of footage from disparate sources. But, no, there was a repetition of characters with whom I understood we're going to get involved with. There's Tomofei Pechorin (Evgeny Koryakovsky), a successful if weak kneed Muscovite working in an advertising agency. This buttoned-down type is smart enough to follow up on an impromptu rescue opportunity when cutie TV anchorwoman Vera Kirillova (Lyubov Tolkalina) can't pay for her latte because her purse has been stolen. But if you're thinking this is a cute meet, wait until their incipient romance is interrupted by the likes of Uloomji (Damir Badmaev) who comes bouncing off Timofei's car in an accident that's less damaging than it appears.

Timofei, that rescuer, takes the victim home because he doesn't want to go to a hospital. Well, this homeless youth who sweeps cages in a zoo, whose appeal is sadly overestimated, and who is a serial opportunist, soon takes over Timofei's space and the picture itself as he decides to stay, seduce his host, seduce his host's girlfriend and, perhaps everything in sight. The little weasal generally changes lives as anyone thought they knew it. All based on the illogic of someone in his right mind letting such domination get a foothold in the first place.

Directors Olga Stolpovskaya and Dmitri Troitsky adopt a hot-cut style as though to inpart some kind of nihilistic rebellion into their romantic elements, but the erratic narrative isn't served well by the twitchiness of the editing and camerawork, condemning the piece to rely on what attractiveness the performers can conjure up to keep anyone drawn in.

Even though it comes off as two kids having had the tools of movie making suddenly thrust into their hands, and who think they've caught the latest wave of stylistic melodrama, it's too awash in gimmickry, worn out references and slogans, and an attempt at satire that lacks coherent bite to amount to inventive payoff.

Tolkalina's pert sexiness comes closest to furnishing an actual romantic comedy value to it, but her character and her acting choices are a little too hesitant and offputting to manage it. What was intended as a breezy multiple romance gets swamped by editorial turbulence. Nothing else makes much of a connection, bringing the scale of my boredom meter to conclude that this team isn't as clever as it thinks its annoying slicy-dicy technique is.

                                      ~~  Jules Brenner