Two Women (2014 film)

Two Women (Russian: Две женщины, Dve zhenshchiny) is a 2014 Russian drama film directed by Vera Glagoleva, starring Ralph Fiennes and Sylvie Testud. It is based on Ivan Turgenev's 1872 play A Month in the Country (originally written as Two Women in 1855). The film received mixed reviews from critics.

Two Women
Film poster
Directed by	Vera Glagoleva
Screenplay by	Svetlana Grudovich Olga Pogodina-Kuzmina
Based on	A Month in the Country 1872 play by Ivan Turgenev
Produced by	Natalya Ivanova
Starring	Anna Brenner-Vartanyan Ralph Fiennes Aleksandr Baluev
Cinematography	Gints Berzins
Edited by	Aleksandr Amirov
Music by	Sergei Banevich
Production company	Horosho Production House
Release date	August 2014 (2014-08) (Window to Europe Film Festival)[1]
Running time	117 minutes
Country	Russia
Language	Russian
Budget	€ 2,860,000

Plot

At the heart of the play lies a love quadrangle. Natalya Petrovna, wife of the rich landowner Arkady Sergeich Islaev, falls in love with Alexey Nikolayevich Belyaev, a student and tutor to Kolya Islaev, her son.

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Rakitin - a friend of the family, has long loved Natalya Petrovna. Verochka, Natalya Petrovna's ward, also falls in love with Kolya's tutor Alexey. Belyaev and Rakitin eventually leave the estate ...

Cast

• Anna Vartanyan-Astrakhantseva (ru) as Natalya Petrovna Islaeva
• Ralph Fiennes as Mikhail Aleksandrovich Rakitin
• Aleksandr Baluev as Arkady Sergeich Islaev
• Sylvie Testud as Elisavetta Bogdanovna
• Anna Levanova as Verochka
• Nikita Volkov as Alexey Nikolayevich Belyaev
• Larisa Malevannaya as Anna Semenovna Islaeva
• Bernd Moss as Schaaf
• Sergey Yushkevich as Ignaty Shpigelsky
• Vasiliy Mishchenko as Bolshentsov
• Anna Nahapetova as Katya

Reception

Two Women has an approval rating of 89% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 9 reviews, and an average rating of 6.00/10.^[2] It also has a score of 54 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 4 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".^[3]

Clarence Tsui of The Hollywood Reporter wrote:

Fiennes' superficial turn (in more ways than one, as his lines ended up overdubbed by a Russian voice actor) is hampered more by circumstances than ability: rather than playing on the multiple possibilities underlining Turgenev's once-transgressive comedy of manners, actress-turned-filmmaker Vera Glagoleva's 21st century take is a po-faced, straitjacketed affair, as she (and her screenwriters Svetlana Grudovich and Olga Pogodina-Kuzima) play out the entangled relationships as excessively affected period drama. While certainly lushly mounted, Two Women is at best a piece of dated heritage cinema, and at worst cliche-ridden pomp.^[4]

Awards and nominations

The film won the Best Feature Film award at the 3rd Hanoi International Film Festival.