The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!

A classic soviet comedy.

This satire of mass standardized Soviet city planning, a tale of two lonely souls finding each other on New Year's, begins with a drunk man mistakenly placed on a plane to Leningrad. Waking in the airport, he gets a cab, gives his Moscow address, enters what seems his apartment block, fits his key in the door-the furniture inside is the same-and passes out on the sofa only to have a pot of water dumped on him by the very angry and very pretty actual tenant. Think The Apartment Brezhnev style.

A beautiful movie with excellent acting and singing. I don't normally like comedies or romances, but this had the right amount of both. This is a perfect winter holiday movie. I look forward to watching it again in the future and sharing this movie with other film enthusiasts.

Nice settings, and the comedic premise works very well at first. Once the major plot points happen and the romance starts to develop, the character of Zhenya becomes less believable, and during this phase the film seems unnecessarily long. Truth be told, it's only the angelic face of Barbara Brylska which gets us through the long problematic third act. Still, a classic must-see Soviet film with nice songs and a very simple plot that I'm amazed hasn't been stolen by Hollywood yet.