Onegin

I just finished watching a film, it was called ‘Onegin’ which I personally think was a bad decision for the title, Onegin is the protagonists last name which is rarely ever said and has little relevance to anything except, obviously, his identity. The cover of the DVD claims this film to be “a timeless masterpiece of love and obsession.” By ‘timeless’ I can only assume they mean ‘drags-on-for-102 minutes-when-the-same-story-could-be-told-in-5’ and by ‘masterpiece’ they must be referring solely to Liv Tyler’s acting, which was undeniably the best thing about Onegin.

The plot is: a man moves to the country and meets a pretty girl. The girl loves the man but he doesn’t love her back. The man travels the world for six years and then comes back. The man loves the girl but the girl is married. The end.

You may be thinking by my summary that the majority of the film focuses on the man’s six year voyage, this is not the case, his trip lasts literally no time at all and is only known because of a rather blunt comment by one of the characters: “Evgeny went on a six year trip, he’s back now. Isn’t that right mother?” and so that still leaves one hundred and two minutes and fifty nine seconds (note that the time is written in words so that it feels longer) devoted to drawn out shots of the girl walking around her house gloomily. The objective of the film is to make the audience wish for the two characters to end up together, because we sit there for 1 hour and 42 minutes watching two depressed people moping around in full knowledge that the sulkiness would stop if only they loved each other... at the same time.

The film begins in the perspective of Evengy Onegin, a nineteenth century man from the city who goes to visit his sick uncle. Upon arriving at the country Evengy finds his uncle is actually already dead, but skips the grieving phase (as that would add too much drain to the film) and skips straight to celebrating the fact that his uncle’s rather big house, is now his.
As Evengy is working out some important inheritance matters, he notices a girl with long dark brown hair talking to someone outside in the distance. At the moment of seeing the girl, he makes the hasty decision to stay in the country as opposed to returning back to his home in the city. Evengy then goes exploring his new home village, finds a man singing in the woods and shoots him.... oh, sorry.... that’s threatens to shoot him. Naturally, the two become great friends. This friend (whose name I don’t remember, mainly because I don’t care) just so happens to be engaged to the girls older sister, excellent coincidence for Evengy, it’s at this point we thank god he didn’t shoot the friend earlier. Maybe I’ll just run you through the scene were Evengy first meets this man:

Friend (has back to Evengy and is singing in the forest): la la la

Evengy (aims his rifle just above the man’s head and shoots): BANG! (which is a noise made by the gun, not by Evengy himself.)

Friend: are you trying to shoot me?Evengy: you’re poaching! Get off my land!

Friend: I always hunt here..... oh..... you must be the new owner of the land. I always go hunting in this forest. Are you going to shoot me?

Evengy: yes.

Friend: .....

Evengy: do you want to go get some lunch?

Friend: then are you going to shoot me?

Evengy: only if you are dull.

And thus begins a wonderful friendship, based on fear and threats. Anyway, Evengy ends up going back to the friend’s house. He is asked to wait in a room, we watch him fiddle with a piece of silver for about three minutes so we can feel the same drawn out boredom he feels while he waits. Once the three minutes of intense, edge of your seat action is over.... we meet Tatyana for the first time. She slides open a door, stares at Evengy for a good two minutes, Evengy says “how do you do” and then she runs away.
Conversation is thick that night at dinner, opinions are shared and all get to know Evengy. Tatyana remains a voiceless beauty until the end of dinner when she makes a single comment, which is followed by her mother saying “Tatyana! You have the oddest ideas!” which does a good job of shutting her up again.

We then begin to view the film from Tatyana’s point of view. She has a fever and cannot sleep because her grandma predicted her an undesired future “you will marry a soldier.” We watch Tatyana walk around the house all night, it was obvious the film makers wanted us to watch her entire sleepless night in real time but had to cut it down a little to fit into the acceptable length of a feature film. We discover the source of her insomnia is love sickness, as she writes Evengy a wordy page long letter which says ‘I love you.’ We see the whole thing being written, but are kept in high suspense for five minutes as they won’t show us what she’s writing (although they could have made it more interesting by not showing us the words “I love you” and “dear Evengy” at the beginning of this five minute suspense filled scene.)
Evengy receives the letter and immediately throws it in the fire. He then takes the letter out of the fire and puts it on his desk instead.
At a party Tatyana and Evengy discuss the letter:

Evengy: thank you for the letter. I admired it.
He hands her back the letter.

Tatyana: keep it. It is yours.
He begrudgingly puts the letter back into his pocket.

Tatyana: you admired it?

Evengy: yes. I thought you wrote very intelligently and the use of punctuation was to be commended.

Tatyana: but do you return my feelings?

Evengy: what?

Tatyana: do you love me?

Evengy: Oh...actually, I am not capable of love. You’re senses are strong but your perception is nonexistent.

That same night, back at the party, Evengy innocently asks his friend’s fiancé to dance with him. The friend starts to emit smoke from his ears, and cuts in on the dance “oh, please can we keep dancing!” demands the fiancé and so, to the friends annoyance, Evengy and the fiancé finish the dance.

Friend: why did you do that!?Evengy: what?

Friend: WHY DID YOU SEDUCE MY FIANCE!?

Evengy: I didn’t mean to. She is young, foolish and ...... easy.

Naturally, the friend wanted to battle Evengy to the death for ‘dishonouring the women I love.’ And so, now for the best part of the film (no sarcasm): the gun shooting on the peer beside the windmill. Evengy ends up winning this duel and shoots his friend in the head, a rather MA moment for an M film, I must say. Unfortunately this scene went for a very short time compared to the next scene: a very lengthy shot of Tatyana’s face.

We blink and then Evengy has gone on a six year journey around the world and is back again. When he sees Tatyana again he falls in love, so he writes her a letter telling her this. Luckily, after six years, she remembers him.... but none the less, throws his letter in the fire.
Tatyana stands gently stroking her pet monkey, which is dressed in a regal red outfit. Her husband (yes, she married someone else in that six year blink) touches her arm:

Husband: you are cold

Tatyana: yes, I am

Husband: ...... goodnight then.
And he walks away leaving her shivering on the cold stone floor. Evengy comes along:

Evengy: did you get my letter?

Tatyana: why have you come? I wish you to leave.

Evengy: I cannot. I love you.

He then gets on his knees and holds her hands, she cries.

Evengy: do you love me?Tatyana: I did once... a long time ago. You broke my heart.

Evengy: is it still broken!?
He asks hopefully, a wicked Voldemort like tinge in his eye, as she pours out floods of tears.

Evengy: it is isn’t it!? You’re heart is still hurting!?.... tell me you love me. Even if it’s a lie.

Tatyana: I love you.

Evengy: great. Awesome. OK.

As an audience we can never be 100% certain whether she lied or not. She then tells him he’s too late because she doesn’t want to be unfaithful to her husband.
Later, Evengy is sitting outside by himself at a table, his servant comes out and says “may I suggest you come inside, sir? It’s very cold out” and Evengy says “I like the cold” and the end credits role. An ending rich of meaning indeed.