The low-budget domestic fantastic thriller “The Calculator” (actors: A. Chipovskaya, E. Mironov, V. Jones) is based on the work of the same name by A. Gromov, the famous science fiction writer who acted as a screenwriter in the project. And the whole number of shooting days (17 out of 20) the whole group spent in places where previously filmed episodes of "Prometheus", "Oblivion", "Noah" and the series "Game of Thrones".
With the light hand of the omnipresent Bondarchuk
Among the producers of the picture appears a significant showman Fedor Bondarchuk, to whom many actors owe their appearance in the project. “Calculator” can be called an international project due to the presence among the leading actors of the star of foreign crime comedies Vinnie Jones (“Kostolom”, “Cards, Money, Two Trunks”), who embodied the image of the main antagonist of the thriller.
The director of the project was Dmitry Grachev, known to the domestic audience for the comedy melodramas “The Exchange Wedding” and “The Bride at Any Cost”, which gathered an impressive box office in the Russian Federation. The actors invited to the project worked with pleasure with him. "Calculator" was called by domestic film critics a "designer" film, thanks to the efforts of the entire casting and film crew.
Plot
The film "The Calculator", the actors and roles of which correspond to each other, since they were selected under the vigilant control of F. Bondarchuk, has an interesting, but far from innovative, plot. A group of ten prisoners is sentenced to life-long expulsion from the planet XT-59. They must survive in the Sargasso swamp, the nature of which is trying in every possible way to destroy them. The protagonist, nicknamed the Calculator (actor Yevgeny Mironov), with the support of Christie (actress Anna Chipovskaya), decides to go in search of the Happy Islands, which, according to legend, are a real oasis in the middle of a lifeless and desolate planet.
Just Van Borg (foreign actor Vinnie Jones) with the rest of the group of unfortunates do not support the initiative of the protagonist and go to the side of the really existing geographic object Rotten aground. The routes of both groups almost coincide at the beginning, in front of the heroes a lot of dangers, disagreements, obstacles await. This is a brief description of the plot line of the thriller "Calculator". The actors and roles of the film after the release of the movie rental gained a lot of fans among the domestic audience.
Fiction "Strugatsky" cut
The literary work "The Calculator" in its original version is not intended for entertaining cinema, however, for an arthouse the option is also not obvious. This is the fantasy of the "Strugatsky" style, not winning for the production, not technological, rather psychological and social, but quite philosophical towards the end. On the whole, the entire stellar acting ensemble of the picture is excessive luxury in this “designer” thriller, in which the focus is not on human nature, as in the literary source, but on the original visual style, which has no analogues in modern Russian cinema.
Director Priorities
The film "The Calculator", whose actors are known and loved in the Russian Federation, according to the director Dmitry Grachev, is a kind of act of modern art. Therefore, Grachev, setting priorities, deliberately abandoned the wet and marsh aesthetics, which is full of the story. The authors of the picture, focusing on the embodiment of their artistic concept, “drained” not only the marsh aesthetics, but also partially psychological and philosophical background.
However, such an author’s decision did not prevent the acting ensemble from realizing its creative potential. The wonderful dramatic actor E. Mironov remarkably got used to the role of his character, revealed his image to the viewer. Sometimes he is a little dramatic, as if playing on the stage of the theater, but he also fully demonstrates the perspicacious mind, multiplied by the trouble-free intuition characteristic of the protagonist, described in the literary source. All the actors involved in the shooting had the opportunity to make sure of his professionalism. "Calculator" would not be so soulful if the protagonist was played by someone else.
The antagonist and the main character girl
Actress Anna Chipovskaya in her role looks more than organic. Chipovskaya managed to make her heroine a truly cosmic girl, in which true innocence and inner strength are combined. The girl, according to the author’s idea, must make a choice between the repressed presidential adviser, gifted with ingenious prudence, and the real bandit Polar Wolf. It is embodied on the screen by the very Winnie Jones, whose texture and organics, indispensable for the roles of real chaos and scumbags, were once seen by Guy Ritchie. Numeral added nothing supernova to the image of the brutal actor.
Supporters
Present in the picture are theatrical veterans - serious drama artists Ivan Verkhovykh and Vladas Bagdonas, who played the secondary roles of two more exiled unfortunates. Also, the viewer will definitely recognize in the image of representatives of the power structures Kirill Kozakov and Nikita Panfilov. Each of the above-mentioned actors demonstrated a game of the highest level, reliably conveying the characters of their heroes, taking into account the fact that they lived their entire conscious life in the system of total control. Some film critics scolded the acting ensemble of the picture, stating that all the characters are empty and the actors are to blame for this. The “Calculator” acquaints the viewer with the heroes who are not able to make decisions and think independently because of the ban — how can their spiritual world become rich?