The first must-see film of the year.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Directed by Paul Mazursky and starring Robin Williams, MOSCOW ON THE HUDSON is a brilliant and honest look at the immigrant/minority experience in the United States. In what is probably his finest performance, Robin Williams plays Vladimir Ivanoff, a Russian saxophone player for the circus who defects while on tour in New York City (at a Bloomingdale's, no less). Even though there is some necessary character establishment in Russia, the movie is largely concerned with his experience as an immigrant and how he adjusts to life here in the United States. During the course of the movie, he meets a black man named Lionel, who is the first person to take him in, and an Italian immigrant named Lucy (Maria Conchita Alonso).What struck me the most about the film, other than the outstanding message, was the degree to which Robin Williams immersed himself in this role. When he was on screen, it was like I was watching an actual Russian saxophone player instead of him playing a character. As a side note, he actually did learn how to speak Russian and play the saxophone for this film. Beyond that, the movie just felt real in the sense that you could believe that an immigrant would conceivably go through many of the situations portrayed in the film. To many of them, there must be this whimsy and fantastical aura when viewed from afar, but things turn out to be quite different once thrust into it headfirst as Vladimir is. Among the things I really took out of the film is the sense of community that immigrants and minorities have, something which they bring from their own life experiences.There is also the central issue of not taking freedom for granted, as I'm sure many Americans born here would understand. Seeing as this film was made during, and in the context of, the Cold War, life was understandably difficult in countries with dictatorial regimes and the lure of America, a free country, was certainly a strong one and still is to this day. That, I feel, is what should be taken away after watching this film most of all. The United States is a nation of immigrants, and we should all treat each other with respect and appreciate the freedoms we enjoy.Looking at the film from other perspectives, the technical aspects of the film are all excellent, though not flashy. Paul Mazursky allows the drama to take center stage, and it benefits the film considerably. There was also a great score with a jazz tinge, which gave off a whimsical tone at first, but also conveyed a sense of longing. Acting-wise, of course Robin Williams gives an incredibly moving portrayal of a Russian immigrant, but Maria Conchita Alonso also does a great job as his fellow immigrant girlfriend. There are also a couple of small roles played by familiar faces (to me, at least). Overall, this is a remarkably tender and uplifting drama (with some laughs as well) that has a great message and Robin Williams' best performance. This is a film that deserves to be seen, so that we can all be reminded not to take our freedoms for granted.

Just found out about this movie and watched it as a result of the untimely death of Robbin Williams.I lived in the Soviet Union until I was 23, and I don't understand those reviewers saying that this movie accurately portrays life in the SU.First, the bus is totally un-SU, has those metal loops hanging from the horizontal metal bar handles, a typical American bus, not a Soviet bus, which is immediately obvious to the naked eye. This is minor, though.Nest, there are the toilet paper line scenes, which are totally lame. We would use napkins or newspaper as toilet paper in SU, but we didn't have the long lines do buy toilet paper as the movie claims to project.Then there's a reference to Russian women having a mustache, which is totally ridiculous. Another piece of retarded cold-war American propaganda. Anyone who's been to the SU or Russia knows that Russian women are 10, 20, no 100 times hotter than their American counterparts (over 50% of which are statistically obese to say the least). Not to mention American women's attitude that has resulted in American men being the #1 men by country to marry foreign women. Enough said.In general, each country, the SU and the US, had positives and negatives about living there. But life in the SU was superior after all (I left SU only after it broke up in 1991). People in the SU had far more of the one precious resource that Americans could only dream of having (and still do): TIME. People in the SU had a roof over their head, food, and other basic necessities of life, while at the same time having a ton of free time, including time to pursue their dreams and hobbies. That is why the arts (ballet, literature, etc.) were so developed in the SU compared to the US: people actually had time on their hands to pursue those interests and hobbies. The US was, and still is, a bunch of debt slaves that live thinking how to make enough money to pay the next set of their bills, and have no time for real life.Not to mention that American kids grew up (and do even more so now) inside, seeing nothing but virtual reality, playing computer games, etc., while we in the SU were free to play out in the street all day long without being worried about drugs, psychos, kidnappers, etc. At age 10, I could take a train to a different city to go to a market to buy parts for building a personal computer, for instance. Good luck doing that in the U.S. which doesn't even have a transportation system to this day. And I never heard about drugs until the SU broke up. Ultimately, no society is perfect, but a good part of this movie is just a bunch of cheap propaganda. Of course, some people would defect from the SU, but so did people from the States (look up Dean Reed, for instance).I liked the line "I have not had a job for 8 years. Welcome to the USA!" Sounds like things have not progressed much in the USA since 1984 when this movie was made....Anyway, travel the world, people, and draw your own conclusions before you buy the bullsh!t that your government feeds you. Goes the same for both Russia and the U.S., as well as any other country... If you think of watching this flick, opt for Goodwill Hunting instead, even if it would be a re-run for you.

An actor as iconic as Robin Williams playing a Russian? Could it work? You wouldn't think so but the splendid little flick Moscow on the Hudson makes it work. Robin Williams stars as a Russian saxophone player named Vladimir Ivanoff. Vladimir and the circus troupe he performs with take a trip to the United States in to perform. While there, Vladimir makes the spontaneous decision to defect while in Bloomingdale's. He manages to get away with it and is left in the states. There he makes friends, looks for work, and learns why America is the greatest country in the world. The film doesn't come without its cheese, but there's something so charming and lovable about the film that I thoroughly enjoyed it.First thing's first, Robin Williams is as good as ever in this flick. He sports an impressive Russian accent throughout the film and about a quarter of his dialogue is actually in Russian, a language you would think he was already fluent in with how well he spoke it. Plus, the character of Vladimir Ivanoff is wonderfully lovable and it's a joy to watch his character progress and mature. Moscow on the Hudson at first starts out with the goofy and confused foreigner who doesn't know what he's doing, but it slowly moves away from that cliché as it makes Vladimir into a real character, rather than a gimmick. He is perfectly believable and goes through a progression that I can buy into. The film deals with the overwhelming nature of America for a foreigner, and it hits on some great points that go along with these ideas. Watching as Vladimir copes with the bustling New York City life is entertaining as well as touching and charming. We feel all of his excitement, anxiety, and even pain as he struggles with such a drastic change in lifestyles.Now, as interesting as the character development of this film might be, it is served with a heaping side of fresh cheese. There are some undeniably silly moments of the film where it begins to take itself a little too seriously and goes too much of a clichéd route to get a point across. I understand that one of the central themes of this film is America as the greatest country in the world, despite all of the problems, but this point is driven a little too exaggerated at points. There is one particularly eye-roll worthy scene on the fourth of July when Vladimir and other immigrants are quoting the Declaration of Independence and other parts of the Constitution inside a café, showing how we can all come together and put aside our differences. I found this to be a little too obvious and melodramatic and wished the film would have toned down some of the cliché in spots. However, it didn't keep me from really enjoying the majority of this film.I didn't have a clue what to expect going into Moscow on the Hudson, but I'm very glad I watched it. I probably wouldn't sit through it again, as I got everything I needed out of one viewing. This is a fun film with great characters and fantastic performances. It delivers a sincere, albeit clichéd, message that makes the film a little more than just another silly foreigner in America film. Plus, putting this film in context makes it all the more important. This is a Cold War era film that really pushes a message of peace and love, and I give it undying respect for that. It shows that we can get along if we just try, while also exemplifying that America stands to be the nation of peace and acceptance. Whether that is true today is up in the air, but that's a whole different topic. The fact of the matter is, Moscow on the Hudson is a pleasant little film that is well worth a one time watch.

Moscow on the Hudson is a fabulous example of a pretty-good movie chock full of 1980s artifacts like Jordache jeans, feathered hair-dos and Afro Sheen, that is often surprisingly interesting, sensitive and even occasionally profound -- especially on the level of the victory of the individual soul over totalitarianism, and the defense of American capitalism against Marxism.This film brings back a flood of cultural memories of the Eighties, the decade immediately preceding the collapse of the Soviet Union, a time in the United States when our political and cultural self-esteem matched our economic prosperity. It doesn't hurt that this movie stars a young bearded Robin Williams with heart (and Russian soul!) and a really cute and occasionally nude young Maria Conchita Alonso (a real-life Venezuelan immigrant) full of Italian passion and an ambitious independent spirit.Only in the early 1980s could blue jeans from Bloomies, velvety white toilet paper, supermarket coffee, studio apartments, hot-dog stands, cab-driving jobs, and U.S. citizenship ceremonies be portrayed as symbols -- indeed even weapons -- of democratic capitalism in a world still governed "from Stettin on the Baltic to Varna on the Black Sea" by the totalitarian evil against which President Ronald Reagan called a crusade two years earlier in his famous 1982 Evil Empire speech to the House of Commons.The political content of the movie is startlingly black-and-white by today's standards of multiculturalism and moral relativism when many academics defend dictatorships' "sovereign right" to exist, and so the offhand manner with which at every turn the film's writers Paul Mazursky and Leon Capetanos deliver praise to political liberty, capitalism and America's unique cultural acceptance of immigrants dedicated to the pursuit of happiness is remarkable. While the way in which their praises are conveyed may from time-to-time seem a little cheesy, sentimental or dated, their profound significance is not diminished.Exactly because capitalism is an economic system as well as a social system, Robin William's character is portrayed as a Russian seeking a remedy for his literal physical hunger and basic financial requirements of life that socialism fails to satisfy. His Russian friend, played wonderfully by Elya Baskin, suffers from socialism's other often dramatized evil -- its humiliating and paralyzing effect on an individual's creative mind and psychology. Perhaps it is precisely because the film's focus is on Williams' character that Moscow on the Hudson at times comes off as exhibiting the over-the-top 1980s commercialism that made it popular then and a little startling in today's Greener age.Russophiles can get a kick out of some of the Russia scenes. Highlights include the drab Moscow Circus on Tsvetnoi Boulevard including full-figured women in polyester; sour old babushkas enforcing their place in line; and shoe vendors pushing the wrong sizes. They might also find some treatment of Soviet atrocities like sending war protesters to mental institutions, or neighbors reporting dissidents to the KGB a bit trite, but not inaccurate. Such horrors are no less relevant in Putin's Russia of today (October 2006), where the most recent contract killing of independent politicians, businessmen and intellectuals is journalist Anna Politkovskaya.While I've focused on the political content, this movie is not primarily a political piece, but a love story; and not primarily a love story, but a romance of personal initiative -- of immigrants who choose to reject the oppressive circumstances they left behind and to seize the chance to pursue their material survival and eventually, individual happiness. The aims of the film are high, maybe even too high at times for this light film to be able to achieve fully; but it is definitely touching and fairly deals with the array of issues every immigrant faces on a variety of levels. I personally found the love relationship between Williams and Alonso to be touchingly realistic at times; and the individualistic focus of this film to be refreshing, as well as a shocking reminder of how inappropriately self-conscious the American media has become in publicly asserting the universal truth and appeal of its core principles: freedom and capitalism.