V lyuyakh (My Apprenticeship)

Aleksei Lyarsky returns for the second in Donskoy’s Maxim Gorky trilogy.  My reaction is pretty much as the same as Childhood… some nice shots, and certain individual moments are compelling, but it doesn’t add up to anything that great.  All of the “villains” are really exaggerated, and Gorky is always such a stand-up guy.  It feels like a mediocre Soviet adaptation of a lesser Dickens novel.  I mean, it’s fairly enjoyable, but a little more nuance would have helped.  Rating: 6

IMDb