There Are Only Women in Sports (В спорте только девушки; also known as Some Like It Cold in English, though this ran into resistance from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, who said it infringed the copyright of their 1959 classic Some Like It Hot) is a 2014 Russian romantic comedy. It was made by the director of the popular Russian TV show Interns (Интерны) a Russian adaptation of the American hit TV show Scrubs. The film was dedicated to the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and was actually filmed at the real Olympic facilities. Although two of the actors had snowboarding experience, all of the snowboarding scenes were done by professionals to avoid the complications that injury would have caused.
The film is about the Russian women’s snowboarding team as they prepare for the Olympics. Due to a ridiculous turn of events, three men end up snowboarding down a mountain dressed as women and catch the attention of the coach of the women’s team. He invites them to join the team, and the men head to the Olympics dressed as women.
The film got average reviews. Film.ru liked it, however, giving it a rating of 7 and calling it “one of the best Russian youth comedies of recent years.” They noted that everything in the film, from the slang to the soundtrack, would successfully appeal to young Russians. They also noted that there are two same-sex kisses in the film—an interesting twist for Russia, where tolerance of homosexuality and nonnormative gender expression is surprisingly widespread as far as culture goes (especially if it’s presented comedically) but nonexistent politically. Even the usually unimpressed reviewer at Ruskino had a few good things to say about the film, saying that many of the jokes were funny and the cinematography was impressive, although the screenplay was less so overall. Reviewers avoided discussing the gender politics of the film—there is so much to say that it’s difficult to even know where to start.
Director: Evgeny Nevskiy
Stars: Aleksandr Vedmenskiy, Il’ya Glinnikov, Aleksandr Golovin, Yekaterina Vilkova, Aleksey Zolotovitskiy, Alyona Chekhova
Production company: Sreda Fetisov Films
Box office take: $7.2 million in Russia; $8.5 million worldwide
Official trailer:
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