grandma researcher (Irina Rozanova) He tells a story to his grandchildren. They want something “scarier”, so the fairy tale is apparently built on one’s own situation: in the elite village of Prestige (“Miracle City”) someone kills one of the many nannies (“yes, it turns out it was she” [девица-красавица] bewitched by an evil wolf”) Everyone has skeletons, and therefore motifs, in their closet. And among the inhabitants there are desperate housewives (Yulia Snigir, Nastasya Samburskaya)successful lawyers (Lyubov Tolkalina) and even an opera singer (Former soloist of “Girls” Irina Dubtsova)also their husbands (Askar Ilyasov, Ilya Lyubimov) with children. And the maids, the old nannies (Vera Kincheva)new nannies (Anna Ukolova) – and Filipinos dressed as women pretending to be nannies (Azat Zhumadil). Elizaveta Egorovna, an experienced employee of the Investigative Committee, takes on the task of exposing the big and small lies here (“a sorceress, a sorceress, has unprecedented ingenuity, great intelligence and, what can we say, nature is also endowed with beauty), everyone appeared to save”).
Let’s not babble: The story of “Prestige”, which deliberately includes a fairy tale setting, is, of course, strange (we note in the margins that the fairy tale sounds very much like that – that is, if you put yourself in the shoes of your grandchildren), but when you see the name of the director Sergei Sentsov, the situation becomes instantly clear. His previous project was the best Russian series of 2022 – the comedy noir “1703” Twin Peaks St., in which the stuttering Gosha Kutsenko searches for the thieves of girls’ corpses with a young partner and Tatyana Bulanova’s tape inserted into the radio. In the acidic back streets of St. Petersburg. Against this background, “Prestige” looks much less stubborn, which is a shame in itself, but it also has its own charm.
According to the idea, this is a brilliant detective story in which there are “rich people too” and in which the spirit of “Big Little Lies” is assumed (Marina Domozhirova from “Unprincipled” is present here in the sense that we have Reese Witherspoon in the house) and “Why Women Kill”. All of the above happens, but the point is not limited to this list, and unexpected things happen in practice. The fictional gingerbread Prestige, shot on location in Istria, suddenly brings to mind Cherry Street from “Mary Poppins, Farewell”: problems with utilities also play an important role in the local plot; local Filipino can well be considered a continuation of traditions. Miss Andrew, played by Oleg Tabakov 40 years ago, and the “prestigious” unit are so peculiar that an admiral who always strives to dive and does not spare his spleen would fit like a glove.
The impression of “prestige” is somewhat spoiled by the teeth-gnashing signs of the recent past that pass like sand through your fingers: crypt, Blinovskaya, haggy-waggy. However, they do not spoil so much as to discourage the desire to watch it, especially since Sentsov manages to include visual excerpts from Bong Joon Ho’s film “Parasite” in what is happening (however, perhaps they are just in plain sight). minister). This is largely due to Rozanova, who here with her usual charisma plays a grumpy version of Miss Marple with a perpetual sore throat. In any case, this is how things are in the early stages, when the detective component is not particularly attractive (here the show also seems to lose a little to “1703”).
Let’s put it this way: After the first hour and a half, it’s tempting to give “The Prestige” a chance. Due to the fact that everything here literally comes together according to the notes of the Splin group (so the St. Petersburg mood is preserved in a sense): “Bach’s music mixed with Bosch’s paintings.” Only in reverse order: in the opening screensaver, the camera wanders through the “Garden of Earthly Delights” (as if it were the territory of the White Lotus hotel chain) and “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor” is heard at the end. Pilot episode accompanying the appearance of the heroine Rozanova in the “Miracle City”. As for whether the hemispheres of the brain are “friends” with each other, we still have to see, but I want to believe that the series, which is the namesake of an extraordinary movie about magicians, can present a few surprises.