What Men Still Talk About (О чём ещё говорят мужчины) is the 2011 followup to the popular 2010 What Men Talk About (О чём говорят мужчины). It is the fourth film made by the Moscow theater group Kvartet I (Квартет И), but this one is the first original film the group made—the others are all adaptations of their stage repertoire.
The film follows the four heroes of What Men Talk About, though this time they are not on a road trip but in Moscow on New Year’s Eve. They end up staying together in Sasha’s office (one of the four main characters)—they can’t leave because there is a band of criminals waiting to attack them—and having an honest conversation. The four of them discuss the various lies they tell in their daily lives, to themselves, their wives, and their friends (probably because of the pervasive cult of toxic masculinity in Russia), as well as less serious subjects.
The film got good reviews overall, though marginally poorer than those of the previous film. The fact that it was written specially for film meant that it was more technically advanced than the previous film—the possibilities of the film medium were better integrated into the screenplay. Reviewers noted that the lack of a happy ending and the simple conversational style meant that it approximated real life surprisingly well. The men have a variety of realistic family problems (or women problems, for the unmarried ones), and the conversation about these felt worthwhile. The being-trapped-in-the-office-by-criminals part of the movie was roundly criticized, though.
Director: Dmitry Dyachenko
Stars: Leonid Barats, Aleksandr Demidov, Kamil’ Larin, Rostislav Khait
Production company: Kinokompaniya Kvadrat
Box office take: $17.81 million
Official trailer:
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