Anna Melikyan's “Tenderness” became a breath of fresh air in the stream of monotonous domestic series. All it took was to tell a sincere story.

One of the first projects in the IVI Originals lineup was the series “Tenderness” by Anna Melikyan, based on the 2018 short film of the same name. The main roles in this story were played by Victoria Isakova, Evgeny Tsyganov and Konstantin Khabensky.

Despite the big names in the cast, it seems like a rather modest and naive series about love, but firstly, it was entirely shot on a smartphone, and secondly, “Tenderness” became an incredibly popular title on the IVI platform, where it garnered over 3 million views in November alone. What is the secret behind the success of Anna Melikyan’s story?

Fleetingness

At the center of the plot is financial director Elena Ivanovna (Victoria Isakova), who, on a bet with a friend, plans to sleep with a stranger within 24 hours. She fails at first, so she goes on a business trip to St. Petersburg, hoping that there she will succeed. And in the city on the Neva, she meets a man, but not just for a fleeting sexual encounter — the one and only. She finds him and almost immediately loses him. Now Elena Ivanovna tries by any means to find her prince on a white horse.

The feeling of fleetingness does not leave throughout the entire viewing of the series “Tenderness”: fleeting acquaintances, fleeting infatuations, fleeting adventures. Melikyan somehow managed to capture this ephemeral substance and immerse the viewer in it.

Almost every situation the heroine finds herself in is naive, sometimes implausible, infantile. But it is not annoying at all, because everything feels light and that very fleetingness.

Humor

A story about a successful middle-aged businesswoman trying to find love is not the most obvious basis for a comedy. “Tenderness” is essentially not an outright comedy, but the series is at the same time filled with comedic situations, witty quotes, and gags scattered here and there.

Love

The whole idea of shooting a naive series about love on an iPhone with a black-and-white aesthetic could have been a failure if not for the simultaneous presence of so many talented actors in the frame.

Victoria Isakova, who in recent years has become arguably the leading actress in Russia, is wonderful both in comedic roles (just look at the quotes about her “un*******ness”) and in dramatic episodes. With Evgeny Tsyganov, they have a well-coordinated duet since the times of “The Thaw,” and Konstantin Khabensky is a...

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Open material

Together, they played out a simple love triangle, where not all “angles” are aware of their roles, but they are endlessly organic in their characters. And all of this is set to beautiful music composed by Konstantin Meladze himself.

Could it have ended any other way than success?

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