At what point do multiple minuses add up to a plus? How do you find that edge, given that the process is almost always random and unpredictable? One recipe is demonstrated by Philipp Abryutin’s film “The Stars Will Guide My Way”, which we are going to analyze in detail.

Synopsis

The life of musician Gena (Ivan Solovyov) clearly went off track at some point: he has to travel around coastal towns, selling coffee from a small van and occasionally putting on impromptu concerts. Now his main goal is to get to Moscow to start life with a clean slate; except he doesn’t even have money for gas to the capital.

When Gena finds out that his ten-year-old daughter Alexandrina (Elizaveta Bugulova), who lives with her mother (Alena Chekhova), is to participate in a vocal audition at the Moscow Music Academy, a plan forms in his mind. Having received travel money from her mother, Gena sets off on the road—together with his panic attack-prone daughter, with whom he must find common ground.

“The Stars Will Guide My Way” – Pure Nonsense

May the creators forgive me, but I must be strict to help them in the future. Because I truly want to see a strong domestic cinema.

So let’s start with the minuses.

In the “screenwriter” section of the film “The Stars Will Guide My Way”, there are as many as three names. Well, all three, alas, do not know how people talk. Every line of dialogue resembles something written by a neural network rather than by someone who lives in society.

Multiply all this by an absolutely banal and predictable plot, which seems designed for the very youngest viewers. Oh, it’s hard sometimes to be too well-watched—any simple story I already perceive only through the prism of similar films. And for adults, “The Stars Will Guide My Way” offers nothing new that they haven’t seen in other road movies.

One of the main plot points here is music. While I am happy to praise all the performers, the songs themselves are very standard, both in terms of lyrics and in terms of being based on the “four chords of pop music”.

And the acting. Oh, the acting. I understand that the material doesn’t allow for interesting interpretations, but sometimes listening to the delivery of lines is almost physically painful. In this regard, I especially want to (anti)highlight the entire cast involved in the scenes at the Academy. Just all of them.

“Do I really have to suffer through all two hours?...” I thought at the beginning of the film, and…

…somehow accidentally fell in love

I don’t know what happened. But the spontaneity of the script material, the naivety of the acting, and a very heartfelt atmosphere suddenly drew me in completely. And before you know it, you’re even a little worried about the relationship between Ivan Solovyov and Elizaveta Bugulova’s characters. Yes, their actions are inconsistent, and the character arcs are not thought out, but… There’s something captivating about it.

“The Stars Will Guide My Way” in this case is like a first-grader who happily brings home to show his parents what he drew at school. The perspective is off, anatomy is not even hinted at, and the watercolor paints sometimes go outside the outlines. But this drawing seems to have a soul, and the child is so sincerely happy with their creation that you can’t help but be happy along with them.

We freely criticize foreign knockoffs—heck, we do it all the time. For the excesses of the crisis of overproduction: sequelness, prequelness, remakes and reboots—especially when the director is clearly not close to what they are filming. Here, Philipp Abryutin clearly has something to say—even if he doesn’t yet fully master all the tools, the story is new, and the meanings come from the heart.

Varvara Ulyanenok

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Open material

“The Stars Will Guide My Way” has a soul. And its heart is in the right place. This makes me very happy.

Verdict

If you can easily tolerate all the minuses I described in the corresponding section—perhaps I would even advise you to give the film “The Stars Will Guide My Way” a chance. Especially if you are a very young person, or accompanying such a young person to the cinema.

The film “The Stars Will Guide My Way” hits theaters on November 10; we wish the distributors at Russian World Vision success. Plus, the film will be available for viewing in cinemas via the Pushkin Card, if that encourages you to watch it on the taxpayer’s dime (heh-heh-heh).