Synopsis
Antonina Miliukova is a beautiful and bright young woman, born in the aristocracy of 19th century Russia. She could have anything she'd want, and yet her only obsession is to marry Pyotr Tchaikovsky, with whom she falls in love from the very moment she hears his music. The composer finally accepts this union, but after blaming her for his misfortunes and breakdowns, his attempts to get rid of his wife are brutal. Consumed by her feelings for him, Antonina decides to endure and do whatever it takes to stay with him. Humiliated, disgraced and discarded, she is slowly driven to madness.
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Cast
- Alena MikhaylovaAntonina Milyukova
- Odin Lund BironPyotr Tchaikovsky
- Nikita ElenevKotek, Tchaikovsky's Pupil
- Ekaterina ErmishinaLiza, Antoninona's Sister
- Philip AvdeevModest Tchaikovsky / Anatoli Tchaikovsky
- Miron FedorovNikolai Rubinstein
- Andrey BurkovskiyVladimir Meshchersky
- Aleksandr GorchilinBrandukov, Tchaikovsky's Pupil
- Varvara ShmykovaSasha, Tchaikovsky's Sister
- Vladimir MishukovShlykov, Antonina's Lawyer
Recommendations
- 75
The Film Stage
A fevered, hypnotizing, meticulously detailed period piece with a protagonist so monomaniacal the film could almost be considered high camp. - 75
IndieWire
It’s hard to imagine that anyone could make another movie about 19th century Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky that’s as febrile and virtuosic as Ken Russell’s “The Music Lovers,” but dissident filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov ... has risen to the challenge with his usual aplomb, orchestrating a historical melodrama that’s almost as feverish as last year’s “Petrov’s Flu.” - 74
TheWrap
It’s a bold and stylish work that slips in and out of fantasy and isn’t afraid to use music and sound design as a weapon, but it can also get relentlessly dreary and oppressive, albeit by design. - 67
The Playlist
With many successful technical elements that are a perfect fit for the premise, Serebrennikov certainly made an ambitious work, and perhaps there is a great movie hidden underneath this lacking final product, but its constant return to the same subjects without any further analysis becomes quickly tiring. - 60
The Guardian
This is undoubtedly a vehement and very watchable drama – far superior to Serebrennikov’s previous film, the sprawling and unrewarding Petrov’s Flu. If there is a narrowness in its emotional and tonal range, that gives it force. - 40
The Hollywood Reporter
Overlong and overdramatic, the two-hour-plus biopic does feature some exquisite filmmaking, in scenes where the romanticism of Tchaikovsky’s music is met with flowing camera movements that capture the action in artfully staged tableaux. - 40
Screen Daily
A sometimes mesmerisingly intense lead performance by Alena Mikhailova is the trump card of this sprawling, sumptuously mounted revisionist drama ... But for all its sometimes-crazed energies, it feels ponderous and overwrought. - 40
The Telegraph
Much as it would be nice to report that the film lived up to its director’s triumphant return, it’s unfortunately a swaggering chore: watching it feels like competing in a sort of art-house cinema Krypton Factor, with a barrage of interpretative dance interludes, unflinching full-frontal male nudity, pulverisingly bleak mise-en-scene, and writhing mental collapse.
