Watch You I Love For Free

One of my all time favorites.

Admirable film.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

This is a film that easily can be given a long existentialistic interpretation a la Sartre or some similar French philosopher. The depraved and superficial meet the natural and authentic, and in some weird theatrical way the events lead to an unconventional relation. I do not think this film should be viewed as a realistic drama. It is slightly absurd, and even the "bad characters" of the film are more absurd than nasty.I liked the film for its crazy and indirect and dreamlike approach to unconventional love and relations. No preaching, not that much reality, and a healthy portion of strangeness. If there is a message, then I believe that is best described as "the path to joyful unconventional life is everywhere, just look!"

I have read on a previous post something like director-writers Olga Stolpovskaja and Dmitry Troitsky seemed more to be issuing a statement about a westbound, tolerant, more modern Russia than committing to a significant, if not merely credible storytelling. And that's just the tip of the iceberg; I saw it all in order to review it.To make a long story short: the movie's unskilled actor direction, the ludicrous resolution of its plot, and clamorous potholes in screen writing, editing, photography, etc make this an excellent choice for undemanding audiences who, yes, believe its statement and pay for theatre tickets. Which in the end is, probably, what matters to some.

YA LYUBLU TEBYA (You I Love) is a fast paced bonbon of a movie from Russia being hailed in some circles as the 'hottest gay film of the year'. Hot it is not: fun it is. The message from director/writers Olga Stolpovskaja and Dmitry Troitsky seems more a PR statement about how Westernized and modern in social behavior Russia has become since Perestroika than creating a significant gay film. Yet somehow the result is a rapid sequence entertainment that should appeal to a very wide audience.Timofei (Evgeny Koryakovsky) is a young, successful ad executive in Moscow, able to afford all of the luxuries of his Western counterparts. He is in a relationship with Vera (Lyubov Tolkalina) who is a popular TV personality. They have a fresh and vital lifestyle, emphasizing the manifestations of capitalism. Simultaneously we meet Uloomji (Damir Badmaev) who comes from the poorer provinces, the son of a strict and struggling worker family. Uloomji strikes out for Moscow to find a job and a life. He 'accidentally' encounters Timofei who feels sorry for the homeless youth and takes him to his apartment for care...and cavorting! The socially naive Uloomji and the sexually naive Timofei collide (the metaphor is readily apparent) and are discovered in embrace when Vera returns home. The remainder of the story is how the two men and one woman grow into a ménage a trois of sorts and how the friends and families of the three respond.While the story is really one of bisexuality it is played as a drawing room comedy (? TV sitcom Moscow style?) and while the film takes a lot of visual and technical chances - some of which work well, others spoil - the final result is a light entertainment that doesn't really push the edge purported by the trailers and the PR media glut. The three main actors are excellent and show promise of becoming stars in their own right. This is a fun film that asks the audience to just step on for the ride for an inside look at the now-open Moscow life! Grady Harp

Really, a dismal piece of work. I would rate it as unwatchable, if only for the acting. But let's not give short shrift to the other poor aspects of this film: it was also poorly written, edited, scored, and directed. Everything about this film just says, "Film school, first attempt."Be assured, this move is not significant as a "gay Russian film." Gay relationships in film are hardly groundbreaking events, and unless you can put a reasonable story around it, it deserves only to be significant as a "a bad Russian film."The positive reviews I've read strike me as overwhelming patronizing to Russian film-making.Note: I can only really comment on the first hour of this movie, since that's all we stayed for. If you've become curious about this movie and just must see it, I strongly recommend you stay out of the theater and make this one a rental.