The Irony of Fate

This article is about the film. For the eponymous concept, see Irony of fate (cosmic irony).

The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!
Film poster
Directed by	Eldar Ryazanov Igor Petrov
Written by	Emil Braginsky Eldar Ryazanov
Starring	Andrey Myagkov Barbara Brylska Yuri Yakovlev
Music by	Mikael Tariverdiev
Cinematography	Vladimir Nakhabtsev
Editing by	Valeriya Belova
Distributed by	Mosfilm
Release date(s)	December 31, 1975 (1975-12-31)
Running time	184 min.
Country	Soviet Union
Language	Russian

The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath! (Russian: Ирония судьбы, или С лёгким паром!; Ironiya sudby, ili S lyogkim parom!) is a Soviet comedy-drama directed by Eldar Ryazanov as a made-for-TV movie. The screenplay was written by Emil Braginsky and Ryazanov, loosely based on Ryazanov's 1971 play Once on New Year's Eve (Russian: Однажды в новогоднюю ночь). For distribution outside of the Soviet Union, the film was titled Happy New Year. The movie was filmed in 1975 at Mosfilm. Simultaneously a screwball comedy and a love story tinged with sadness, the film is traditionally broadcast in Russia and the former Soviet republics and satellite states every New Year's Day. It is viewed as fondly every year as is the American film It’s a Wonderful Life during the Christmas holidays.

A sequel, The Irony of Fate 2, was released in December 2007.

Plot

The key to the plot is the relative uniformity of Krushchev era public architecture. This is made explicit in a humorous animated prologue, in which architects are overruled by politicians and red tape. This results in the entire planet being polluted with identical, unimaginative multistory apartment buildings of the sort that can, in fact, be found in every city, town, and suburb across the former Soviet Union. These buildings are uniform right down to the door key of each apartment. The rest of the film is live-action.

Following their annual tradition, a group of friends meet at a banya (a traditional public bath) in Moscow to celebrate New Year's Eve (Новогодняя Ночь, Novogodnyaya Noch). The friends all get very drunk toasting the upcoming marriage of the central male character, Zhenya Lukashin (Andrei Myagkov) to Galya (Olga Naumenko). After the bath, one of the friends, Pavlik (Aleksandr Shirvindt), has to catch a plane to Leningrad; Zhenya, on the other hand, is supposed to go home to celebrate New Year's Eve with his fiancée. Both Zhenya and Pavlik pass out. The others cannot remember which of their unconscious friends is supposed to be catching the plane; eventually they mistakenly decide that it is Zhenya and put him on a plane instead of Pavlik. On the plane, he collapses onto the shoulder of his annoyed seatmate, played by the director himself (Ryazanov) in a brief comedic cameo appearance. The seatmate helps Zhenya get off the plane in Leningrad. He wakes up in Leningrad airport, believing he is still in Moscow. He stumbles into a taxi and, still quite drunk, gives the driver his address. It turns out that in Leningrad there is a street with the same name (3rd Builders' street), with a building at his address which looks exactly like Zhenya's. The key fits in the door of the apartment with the same number (as alluded to in the introductory narration, "...building standard apartments with standard locks"). Inside, even the furniture and layout of the apartment is nearly identical to that of Zhenya's apartment. Zhenya is too drunk to notice the differences, and goes to sleep.

Later, the real tenant, Nadya Shevelyova (Barbara Brylska), arrives home to find a strange man sleeping in her bed. To make matters worse, Nadya's fiancé, Ippolit (Yuri Yakovlev), arrives before Nadya can convince Zhenya to get up and leave. Ippolit becomes furious, refuses to believe Zhenya and Nadya's explanations, and storms out. Zhenya desperately tries to get back to Moscow, and Nadya herself wants to get rid of him as soon as possible, but unfortunately there are no flights to Moscow until the next morning. Thus the two are compelled to spend New Year's Eve together. At first they continue to treat each other with animosity, but gradually their behavior softens and the two fall in love. Comedic moments punctuated by unexpected guests, the repeated returns of the jealous Ippolit, the buzzing of the doorbell, and the ringing of the phone are interwoven with the slowly developing love story. In the morning, they feel that everything that has happened to them was a delusion, and they make the difficult decision to part. With a heavy heart, Zhenya returns to Moscow. Meanwhile Nadya reconsiders everything and, deciding that she might have let her chance at happiness slip away, takes a plane to Moscow following Zhenya, easily finding him in Moscow, since their addresses are the same.

Cast

• Andrey Myagkov as Zhenya
• Barbara Brylska as Nadya
• Yuri Yakovlev as Ippolit
• Aleksandr Shirvindt as Pavel, Zhenya's friend
• Georgi Burkov as Misha, Zhenya's friend
• Liya Akhedzhakova as Tanya, Nadya's friend
• Aleksandr Belyavskiy as Sasha, Zhenya's friend
• Lyubov Dobrzhanskaya as Zhenya's mother
• Olga Naumenko as Galya
• Gotlib Roninson as Zhenya's neighbour at the airport
• Eldar Ryazanov as Zhenya's neighbour in the plane
• Lyubov Sokolova as Nadya's mother
• Valentina Talyzina as Valya, Nadya's friend; Nadya's voice

External links

• The Irony of Fate at the Internet Movie Database
• The Irony of Fate at AllRovi
• Review at The New York Times
• Screenshots
• Trailer and Screenshots