Tat'jana Komarova

The Family Man

In this affectionate, leisurely paced comedy, an Odessa policeman is out walking his beat when he discovers an adorable infant abandoned in a cabbage patch. He does his duty and takes the baby to an orphanage, but later he and his wife, who have an unusually affectionate and cozy relationship, decide to try and adopt the little one. What they must go through to accomplish that goal is anything but straightforward.

A middle-aged, alcoholic lawyer inherits a mysterious, unsigned will from his father.

Nikolai (played by Sergei Dontsov) has been fired from his job as a music teacher and has to live in the gym until he finds a place to stay. Finally, he gets a communal room in the apartment of Gorokhov (Victor Mikhalkov). The room's previous inhabitant, an old lady, has died a year ago, and yet her cat, Maxi, is still in the locked room, healthy and fat. Soon, Nikolai and his neighbours discover the mystery: there is a window to Paris in the room. That's when the comedy begins - will the Russians be able to cope with the temptation to profit from the discovery?

In the old days it was called hypochrondria, or black melancholia. Now, apparently, it's termed the Asthenic Syndrome. Whatever it is, Nikolai, a teacher of epicly indifferent pupils, has got it, and it's not much fun.