Moscow on the Hudson

In 1984, the touching, understated, humanist performance Robin Williams gives in this sweet movie was unexpected. It wouldn’t take long for us to learn that the manically energetic stand-up would go on to play far more of these quiet, reserved leading men than he would play wild, loose cannons in movies. Moscow on the Hudson was only Willians' fifth film, and before this picture, we all thought he'd spend most of his film career playing guys like Donald Quinelle from Michael Ritchie's The Survivors (1983) rather than guys like T.S. Garp in George Roy Hill's The World According to Garp (1982). Fortunately, that was not the case, or Williams wouldn't have had such a long, diverse, and acclaimed career.

Here, he plays Vladimir Ivanoff, a saxophonist with the Moscow circus on a US tour who decides to defect in the middle of Bloomingdales. He is befriended by a Black security guard (Cleavant Derricks), who takes him in to stay with him and his family; a Cuban immigration lawyer (Alejandro Rey), who helps him find work and apply for legal status; and an Italian immigrant working behind the perfume counter (María Conchita Alonso) who becomes his lover. The film then follows his attempts to realize the American dream, which he learns is not all it's cracked up to be.

Writer/producer/director Paul Mazursky (Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Harry and Tonto, An Unmarried Woman) downplays the fish-out-of-water comedy in most of this film, which is more of a wistful, romantic drama. There isn't a lot of energy driving this picture, but it's a present enough story with characters we like spending time with. The film features a lot of rich time-capsule-like details about NYC in the mid-‘80s and US-USSR relations as the Cold War was, unbeknownst to us, drawing to a close. It's nice how much time we spend with Vladimir, his family, and friends in Russia during the picture's first act. These scenes are some of the most non-sensational images of the Soviet Union we got during this decade. We see why people want to leave, the lines for bread, shoes, toilet paper, etc., and the constant harassment from Communist Party functionaries (as epitomized by Savely Kramarov and Oleg Rudnik, who bring nuance to their villainous characters). Elya Baskin creates a wonderful character in Vladimir's buddy, the clown Anatoly Cherkasov, who talks of nothing but defecting yet doesn't have the courage when the time comes. And Alonso is warm, feisty, and sexy in her debut feature. But the reason this movie is remembered at all is the tender performance by Williams.