The author of the plot summary says "The manuscript stays at the office and mysteriously influences the lives of anyone who opens it and reads at least one page. There are four stories in the manuscript, and four readers whose lives are changed after reading them." Well, that would have been much more interesting but I did not see this in the actual movie -- I wonder if "Anonymous" has read the book this is based on? What we really see can be explained by the employees reading one short story each and imagining what they read with themselves in the main role. This is especially more believable in case of story no. 3, where the old office assistant lady re-emerges as a head librarian somewhere in the country far from Moscow, this change could hardly happen in the limited future still ahead of her .
The first story really balances between reality (a slightly and satirically distorted one) and supernatural, as the pretty ordinary, very snobbish wedding planner suddenly grows into demonic proportions - - but surprisingly still gets "normal" reactions from the others. This is good, rather Bulgakovian but regretfully never surpassed or even completed by the other three stories.
The second one is somewhat down-to-earth, about corruption in all levels of Russian life (including the highest one), well-made and often funny but breaks the atmosphere of the film as a whole. So does the third one about the librarian lady who receives a benevolent psychic power from the poems of Pushkin -- this is not more than a too-fantastic idea, "Twilight Zone" style (albeit professionally filmed). And the last one, a cliché story in which a middle-aged guy (Mr. Editor-in-chief himself) realizes that his too good to be true affair with a girl in her early twenties is not so great after all and learns to appreciate all the knowledge women of his age possess. This is not well-made at all, the girl being an unbelievable character (beautiful, young and upper-class but behaving very cheap, with low self-esteem and without really using her feminine powers). 100% male fantasy and the execution is more tired than hot.
So this film made me expect something great but left me unsatisfied in the end (and did I mention this ends with really awful Russian rap?) but I still expect better ones from the obviously very talented director.
The first story really balances between reality (a slightly and satirically distorted one) and supernatural, as the pretty ordinary, very snobbish wedding planner suddenly grows into demonic proportions - - but surprisingly still gets "normal" reactions from the others. This is good, rather Bulgakovian but regretfully never surpassed or even completed by the other three stories.
The second one is somewhat down-to-earth, about corruption in all levels of Russian life (including the highest one), well-made and often funny but breaks the atmosphere of the film as a whole. So does the third one about the librarian lady who receives a benevolent psychic power from the poems of Pushkin -- this is not more than a too-fantastic idea, "Twilight Zone" style (albeit professionally filmed). And the last one, a cliché story in which a middle-aged guy (Mr. Editor-in-chief himself) realizes that his too good to be true affair with a girl in her early twenties is not so great after all and learns to appreciate all the knowledge women of his age possess. This is not well-made at all, the girl being an unbelievable character (beautiful, young and upper-class but behaving very cheap, with low self-esteem and without really using her feminine powers). 100% male fantasy and the execution is more tired than hot.
So this film made me expect something great but left me unsatisfied in the end (and did I mention this ends with really awful Russian rap?) but I still expect better ones from the obviously very talented director.