ZOOLOGY

released 29 septeMber 15 | 91 minutes

Director Ivan I tverdovskiy Cast Natalya pavlenkova, Masha tokareva, aleksandr Gorchilin

Natasha (Natalya Pavlenkova) is lonely. Her colleagues bully her, she has nothing resembling either a romantic or a social life and, in her fifties, she still lives with her mother. Then, one day, she grows a tail.

The first time you see her new appendage, it’s repugnant – a fleshy, twitching thing the length of an arm. And yet, rather than bring her pain, it seems to awaken something in her. When people in her religiously conservative seaside town gossip about a bestial woman among them, she finds it amusing rather than upsetting. Implied to be a virgin, her sexuality awakens and she embarks on a sort-offling with a young doctor.

Ivan Tverdovskiy’s film is low on plot, high on gloomy atmosphere and utterly engrossing. It’s both a portrait of an ageing woman in a society that had shunned her even before she grew a tail, and a humane comedy about her blossoming self-confidence. Pavlenkova gives a tremendous and moving performance: initially sad and contained, later joyful, defiant and angry. Indeed, the whole – mostly female, mostly middle-aged – cast is excellent.

The ending, however, marks a depressing shift from empowering fable to slightly muddled political allegory. Very nearly a great film, Zoology ends up as merely a very good one instead. Will Salmon