Americans, whether they know it or not, have gotten used to a steady diet of remakes of foreign films and television shows, whether it’s The Office or American Idol. But the process works the other way too. For example, 1990s American sitcom The Nanny was exported to many lands and, according to this movie, the Russian version became the country’s first sitcom back in 2004. So when Everybody Loves Raymond creator Philip Rosenthal got the call from Moscow a few years ago, off he went to see if the show’s title was true, even if Raymond got turned into Kostya. And he got someone to follow him with a camera. It’s hard to tell whether the problem is the Russians’ different concept of what’s funny, or merely what the Russian creative folks think they’ll watch. But Rosenthal quickly determines that getting them to see the humor in the trivia of everyday life will be a tough sell when the costume designer would prefer to have Kostya’s wife do housework in designer dresses.
In addition to directing, Rosenthal does the sing-song-y voiceover and comments for the camera during filming, having clearly arrived in in Russia already with the idea that this will be a comic documentary. “Isn’t this the scene where the mafia comes?” he asks (us) when his driver momentarily leaves him alone in his car. His comments border on the condescending. But, in the end, he learns the valuable, yet trite, lesson that there are good and bad people everywhere. It’s entertaining enough, and a useful if slender primer on television’s creative process. And it is kind of funny when the Russians rewrite an American script about the Fruit-of-the-Month Club (unheard of there) into one about the water-of-the week club. (It’s more funny if you like the show, I’d think.) But this fairly slight effort, essentially Rosenthal’s travelogue, seems more in the category of something that would make a worthwhile extra on the Raymond DVD box set.
viewed at Ritz Bourse and reviewed 5/4/11
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