The central figure in Lucy is Senya, a gifted programmer who communicates more effectively with machines than with people. At work his boss Grisha relentlessly teases the man for his perpetually grave expression. At home Lena, his wife, rebukes him for what she calls a lack of backbone, while street life throws petty cruelty at him from time to time. Yet Senya discovers a way to cope when Lucy, a smart, self-learning mind he created, starts to listen and offer solace.
The trouble with his attempts to stand up to bullies at the start bleeds into his personal life and escalates into tragedy. In a bid to avenge a young offender, Senya seeks out the attacker’s father, a powerful lawmaker who dies by accident. As Senya wrestles with the consequences, Nina, the deceased politician’s conservative widow, enters his life with a quiet strength and a wary sympathy that she does not easily extend to others.
Thus forms a strange and volatile partnership, reminiscent of Bonnie and Clyde but sharpened by a new, more advanced ally. The unlikely trio expands when Lucy, the astute speaker, joins them in their descent toward peril. Unlike Senya, Lucy is ruthless toward criminals and relentless in pursuing her own version of justice.
Director Ivan Tverdovsky, known for Zoology and Conference, steps into this television world for the first time with a project that was initially challenging. He admits the material did not readily offer the original spark he wanted for an eight-episode journey until Lucy arrived as a catalyst for deeper exploration.
The story of a world-weary hero who finds rescue in a clever voice becomes a painterly playground for artistic experimentation. It evolves into more than a simple premise about a midlife crisis. Senya exists within a family dynamic that includes two daughters, one of whom cherishes a toy axe, which underscores the play between childishness and responsibility. Senya himself is treated as an older child who struggles to accept accountability and to make truly adult decisions. His admission that fear chains him becomes a recurring refrain, especially in conversations about his role at work and his home life. There is weariness in his head and a sense that something rotten lies just beneath the surface.
Anger drives Senya toward misguided acts of revenge and the plot intensifies as he witnesses a brutal display of power when a bully is humiliated in front of his own father, a man aligned with domestic-violence lobbying. This paradox of wrongdoing threads through the narrative as the characters wrestle with overt and passive aggression, the mistreatment of strangers, and scenes of domestic cruelty. The world around them radiates pain, shaping their moods and steering the course of events. After a confrontation with his father, Senya sinks further into anger, directing his fury at a stranger and, later, at his father’s mistress who is splashed with paint during a confrontation. The cycle of violence widens, turning jokes into something much more dangerous.
When the tension peaks, Senya resorts to the only weapon he feels he still has — a sharp tongue delivered through Lucy’s controlled, impersonal voice. He can neither confront people nor bear the thought of prison, and the satire becomes a dark mirror of a society that tolerates abuse yet fears its own consequences. The narrative thus moves from a quick quip or a meme-like sketch into a serious meditation on violence and power that reveals itself in the most intimate circles of life.
The cast strengthens the drama with committed performances. Crafting a role that leans away from heroic glamour is challenging, yet Danila Kozlovsky finds a way to render Senya as a man who appears strong outwardly but remains uncertain and vulnerable within. His portrayal captures a wounded tenderness: a man who wants to do right but often stumbles. Kristina Asmus, widely acclaimed for her dramatic range, offers a Nina who is both formidable and restrained, a figure who keeps her own inner life carefully guarded while navigating the pressures of a world that does not always welcome decisive action. The credibility of their dynamic helps suspend disbelief; the two lead performances together create a portrait of two people who are haunted by their pasts and by a present that tests every belief they hold.
Yet the series also stumbles on one of its recurring flaws. The women who populate the story sometimes fall into familiar stereotypes rather than becoming fully realized characters with independent trajectories. Nina carries dramatic weight but remains bonded to the men around her, while Lena, Senya’s wife, often functions as a nagging presence rather than a fully drawn partner. The therapist, portrayed by Anna Slyu, offers more caricature than clarity, presenting a mockery of therapy rather than a genuine path to healing. The result is a tension between strong performances and a narrative tendency to underdevelop certain female roles, leaving the supporting women feeling less autonomous than the men around them.
The comparison to Spike Jones’ Her is tempting but imperfect. In Her, a solitary urban dweller forms a bond with an artificial intelligence who helps craft intimate, heartfelt connections. The male lead in that film writes love letters for others yet cannot sustain his own. In Lucy, the dynamic is reversed: the intelligent assistant seeks to understand and control life, while Senya struggles to find a moral foothold that will keep him from collapsing under the weight of his circumstances. The dialogue between human desire and machine guidance yields a meditation on companionship that remains relevant in a world where technology is increasingly woven into the fabric of daily life.
Ultimately Lucy offers a provocative look at loneliness and the human need for connection. The smart speaker is a tool that amplifies the protagonist’s flaws while also exposing a longing for intimacy that cannot be satisfied by words alone. The tension between independence and dependence, between self and other, anchors the story in a contemporary anxiety about how we relate to one another in a digital age. The result is a narrative that challenges viewers to consider what it means to choose life together rather than drift apart as an island of one.