Tedium, Not Originality, in Australian ‘Russian Doll’

“Russian Doll” is a minor and unoriginal comedy from Australia starring--and co-produced by--Hugo Weaving, who came to international attention as the most wistful of the drag queens in “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” and went on to further renown in “The Matrix.”

Weaving has charm and versatility, and here he’s ventured into Hugh Grant territory. But he hasn’t quite the looks or star power to pull it off.

He gets scant help from a script that casts him as Harvey, a Sydney private detective who, hired to get the goods on an adulterous husband, discovers that the woman the adulterer is cheating with is Harvey’s own fiancee.

At precisely the same moment, Katia (Natalia Novikova), a gorgeous young Russian, discovers the man she has been paired with via an international matchmaking agency dead in his easy chair.

Fleeing from his Sydney apartment in tears, she is offered a handkerchief by a man in the street, Ethan (David Wenham), who is instantly captivated by her and has soon caught her up in a torrid affair.

There’s a catch: Ethan is married, but Katia can’t stay long in the country without getting married. What to do but pay his best friend Harvey enough money to marry Katia so that he’ll be able to quit the private-eye work he’s come to loathe and settle down to work on that novel he’s always been meaning to write.

As Ethan’s wife, Miriam (Rebecca Frith), starts planning a big wedding for Harvey and Katia, Katia finds that Ethan has scant time for her. She and Harvey discover that it’s difficult not to discover each other. A crystal ball is not needed to take it from here.

Directed and co-written by Stavros Kazantzidis with no distinction whatsoever, “Russian Doll” quickly becomes silly and tedious.

The supposedly devoutly religious Ethan comes across as a hypocrite, which is hardly surprising, and Harvey spends so much time as a self-pitying wimp it becomes harder and harder to care whether he has the capacity for self-redemption.

This “Russian Doll” might better have stayed home.

MPAA rating: R, for some sexuality and language. Times guidelines: Language, adult themes and situations.

‘Russian Doll’

Hugo Weaving: Harvey

Natalia Novikova: Katia

David Wenham: Ethan

Rebecca Frith: Miriam

A Lot 47 Films presentation. Executive producer Bruno Charlesworth. Director Stavros Kazantzidis. Screenplay by Kazantzidis, Allanah Zitserman. Cinematographer Justin Brickle. Editor Andrew MacNeil. Sound Peter Grace. Production designer Elizabeth Mary Moore.

Running time: 1 hour, 34 minutes.

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