| Tchaikovsky's Wife | |
| Director: | Kirill Serebrennikov |
| Runtime: | 145 minutes |
| Country: | Russia France Switzerland |
| Language: | Russian |
Tchaikovsky's Wife (Russian: Жена Чайковского|Zhena Chaikovskogo) is a 2022 Russian biographical drama film written and directed by Kirill Serebrennikov, starring Alyona Mikhaylova and Odin Biron.[1] [2] The film was a participant in the competition program of the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.[3] [4]
Set in the Russian Empire during the second half of the 19th century, the film is about the wife of the composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. She cannot accept her husband's homosexuality and as a result, gradually loses her mind.[5]
The film was presented at the 75th Cannes Film Festival's main competition on May 18, 2022 (Day 2).[6] In the context of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, European Film Academy president Agnieszka Holland criticised the decision to screen a Russian film at the Cannes' main competition, noting that Kirill Serebrennikov "used [the film's festival press conference] to praise a Russian oligarch and compare the tragedy of Russian soldiers to Ukrainian defenders. I would not give him such a chance at this very moment",[7] even though Serebrennikov openly condemns the war and for this all his productions in his home country were cancelled.[8] [9] [10]
Film critic Zinaida Pronchenko negatively assessed the film: "One continuous ridiculous metaphor of the Russian world".[11] On a contrary, Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian praised the film as far superior to Serebrennikov's previous Petrov's Flu, and described Alyona Mikhailova's performance as tremendous.[12]
Tchaikovsky's Wife has an approval rating of 85% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 33 reviews, and an average rating of 6.6/10. The website's critical consensus states: "If at times opaquely and certainly prolongedly, Tchaikovski's Wife elegantly captures a heartbroken woman's obsession with her prominent spouse who struggled with his own censured sexuality".[13] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 50 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[14]