The Death of Stalin

03/02/1953: Excitement in Moscow. After suffering a stroke, Joseph Stalin is dying. Even before Stalin has breathed his last, a bitter struggle over his succession begins. The members of the Politburo are scheming and stabbing each other in the back in order to get the best possible position in the successor government. Of course, to the outside world, appearances must always be kept up and a pompous funeral must be planned. Days of madness follow, in which the whole depravity of the regime with all its malicious facets is revealed.

Director Armando Iannuci is well versed in the satirical treatment of politics, having been responsible for the multi-award winning BBC series The Thick of it as well as the first four seasons of the superb HBO series Veep. And his feature debut In the Loop, for which he received an Oscar nomination for the screenplay, also dealt with the machinations of politics in a sharp-tongued way. Therefore, he actually seemed like the perfect candidate to adapt the acclaimed graphic novel The Death of Stalin. With a top-notch cast that includes the likes of Steve Buscemi and Transparent star Jeffrey Tambor, as well as Monty Python legend Michael Palin, surely nothing should really go wrong?

However, despite all this excellent potential, the film just doesn't quite want to work. Sure, there are some very good moments where the bitterly satirical tone works well. There's some delightful dialogue mixed in with some well-done slapstick every now and then. But for most of the time, jumbled dialogue and a sense of humor that veers off-tone more than once dominate the proceedings. The discussion about how far satire is allowed to go has been held countless times. The consensus is usually: If it is well done and also pursues a certain sense, satire is allowed to go pretty far. But when it is not done consistently, as is the case here, and then rape or the murder of innocent people is made fun of, the fun stops.

Now, it can be argued that such topics are not really made fun of. But they are just included in the humorous context and that really pisses you off more than once. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad if the rest of the movie had really deep and clever jokes to offer. But sadly, that too is all too rarely the case. The Death of Stalin is a complete mess, where the various set pieces just don't want to fit together. Given the truly superb talent of those involved in front of and behind the camera, this is not only a shame, but a downright disgrace. What could have been a classic of historical-political satire has unfortunately become a film that should be forgotten very quickly. Only very conditionally worth seeing!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp