Watching this movie again for this project has been one of the best experiences of the new year. It may not be the finest movie, the most challenging film or a game changer, but it is the most patriotic movie I’m going to see this year. That says something about a movie set for most of it’s first half in Russia. You will know why it mattered the U.S. stayed strong in the face of the cold war, and not a shot is fired by any soldier or warship. This is a movie about “Freedom”, from the point of view of someone who can barely contemplate the concept because of the world they live in.
Robin Williams gives a great, subdued performance as Vladamir Ivanoff, a musician from a Russian circus who comes to America and finds that “Freedom” is a lot of things, some of them painful, but in the end mostly life affirming .
