The Thick of It, but in Soviet Russia

Rating: 8/10 (19 April 2018)

The Death of Stalin has all of Iannucci's hallmarks of both dark comedy and political satire weaved through an otherwise quite serious story. Stalin is dead (spoilers), and the vacuum of power he leaves behind is ripe for the taking. But Russian authority doesn't work the same as it does anywhere else. It's crueller and less forgiving, and as such Iannucci has an entire playground of backstabbing and scheming characters to work with. He's able to twist fear and paranoia into pure humour and hilarity.
The film opens with a mysterious phone call from Stalin's staff to a radio station, and the utter dread and confusion it instills in those that work at the radio station is equal parts hilarious and terrifying. After this introduction, we kick off with Stalin's council dividing and scheming behind each others backs. Death camp lists are drawn and redrawn, Stalin's children are manipulated and moved like pawns on a chessboard, and Stalin's own estate and staff are stripped and discarded like waste. And yet amidst the bleak cruelty and the cast of immensely dislikable characters, jokes are found fast and often, poking fun at it all and ultimately painting everyone involved as an idiot. Malenkov is a spineless coward, Molotov is so paranoid of retribution that he continues to lambast his wife after she's found innocent of treason, Mikoyan and Bulganin pretty much just go along with whoever shouts the loudest, Khrushchev can't seem to see any of his plans to success, Zhukov is just the muscle that doesn't give a crap, and Vasily is so drunk all the time that he doesn't even know what he's saying.
The humour here is almost always black, even if just by virtue of being humour interspersed in a dark, violent story full of executions, death camps, and political intrigue. But beyond that, some of the jokes are just inherently black by nature, such as Molotov talking about his wife's treason for instance, or guards refusing to check on Stalin through fear of being killed. Many of the jokes find lighter footing though, such as Zhukov teasing Khrushchev when approached with helping to take down Beria, or Vasily attempting to wrestle a gun from his bodyguard while everyone else just stands there watching with bored or unimpressed expressions, or even the council consistently kneeling in a puddle of piss.
And yet the humour never undermines it's more serious moments. There's barely a joke to be found in the film's final scenes when all the scheming pays off and a new regime is founded, sequences of people being rounded up and sent for torture or execution is as bleak as it sounds, and the closing credits are almost haunting in their mirroring of Russian treatment of history.
As such all the actors involve do a great job of tackling both the dramatic and comedic aspects of their roles. Jason Isaacs is undoubtedly the standout when it comes to humour, utilising a Yorkshire accent to really give Zhukov the carefree attitude that makes him so entertaining. Simon Russell Beale on the other hand gives us a properly conniving villain who's repulsive to the core. He makes Beria oh so easy to hate. Michael Palin, Steve Buscemi, and Jeffrey Tambor manage to straddle the careful tightrope between likeable enough to laugh at, but unlikeable enough to befit their characters. If I had to pick a weak link it would probably be Andrea Riseborough, but I kind of feel that's unfair as I'm not a fan of her as it is. I found her Svetlana more of an annoyance than anything. Even Olga Kurylenko offered a performance more interesting and engaging.
The Death of Stalin was pretty much exactly what I wanted. It finds humour in all the best places, and fills the movie to the brim with quotable lines and memorable moments that'll have me chuckling to myself for weeks. At the same time it doesn't shy away from it's dark subject matter, using it as framing for the idiocy the film pokes at. It pretty much is The Thick of It, but in Soviet Russia. If there's one thing that didn't quite work for me, it's how little flow there is between the light and the dark. Three Billboards did the serious/humourous really well, changing with the click of the fingers in the middle of its scenes, but The Death of Stalin gives you scenes gut-wrenching and horrible to contemplate, and then expects you to laugh in the next scene. It's not a big criticism, but I felt the balance could've been a little better. Regardless, I give the movie a solid 8/10, and would recommend it to any fans of political satire or black comedy (or both, I guess).