‘Amerikatsi’ Review: Armenia’s Oscar Submission Is A Wayward, Blackly Comic Tale Of Hope
deadline.comThere’s a lot to take in and even more to process in American-Armenian director Michael Goorjian’s ambitious period piece: What he’s tilting at here is not beyond the realms of comedy, as Armando Iannucci proved with his 2017 jet-black satire The Death of Stalin.
But tone is crucial, and Amerikatsi has a waywardness that too often undermines its intent — there’s a lot that works here and so much that doesn’t.
There are moments that are sensitive, thoughtful, and really quite moving — in an elegant, silent-movie way — but the framing is so dark in its humor that many viewers may never make it to them.
In Eastern European literature, the greenhorn caught in the crosshairs of bureaucracy has long been a staple, and Amerikatsi pushes that tradition by placing an emigrant American at the heart of its drama.
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