START video service has begun showing its main premiere of spring - the life-affirming Russian comedy-drama series "257 Reasons to Live." Previously, the project of director Maxim Sveshnikov was announced to participate in the main competition of the international festival of TV shows Canneseries, but because of the coronavirus, the show was postponed to October. However, in the autumn the project will go to Cannes anyway and will compete with other series from around the world.
According to the plot, the main character Zhenya performed by Polina Maximova ("Deffchonki", "Without Me", "Seven Dinners") after many years of struggle wins oncology. Zhenya is going to return to her usual life, but understands that a lot has changed during her absence: those around her have long since mentally buried the girl and acquired new interests. It turns out that the closest people lied to her cruelly!
The young man with whom Zhenya agreed to get married after recovery (Sergey Godin), throws her on the way from the hospital, because the heroine allegedly does not care about him and "with this cancer she was fixated only on herself."
“I was just a little busy, with this, like this ... ah, struggle for life,” the girl says. But the groom has already made a decision and is not going to change him: it turns out that he has a “serious relationship” with his doctor Zhenya (Anna Nevskaya).
According to Godin, on the set, he tried to justify the actions of his character. The director, however, thwarted such attempts: it was with this hero that he wanted to show egoists who did not even try to feel the pain of other people. And, judging by the first series, as a result, the filmmakers turned out to be just such a clearly negative character.
- © Video service START
In other areas of life, Zhenya’s affairs are no better. Girlfriends are squeamish about being next to a girl because of fears of picking up oncology (they seem to guess that it is not transmitted by airborne droplets, but one of her friends is expecting a baby - you never know). Sister on behalf of Zhenya maintains an account on Instagram, with the help of which she collects money for her own content. The heroine, it seems, is still ready to leave at work, however, provided that the wig is constantly worn. However, there in the very first days Zhenya is subjected to harassment and already decides to leave.
Despite all the vicissitudes, the fear of the return of the disease and the compulsive advice of an enterprising sister to beat money out of everyone and return the former (“You are 30. Either Mitya or cats”), Zhenya does not lose heart. Even during the fight against the disease, she started a notebook in which she wrote down 256 reasons to live. The heroine adds one more - to find love - and decides to continue to act, guided by the list.
The series begins with the moment of awareness of remission, which gives a person hope for a continuation of the old life or, as in the case of the heroine Maximova, for the beginning of a new one. The creators hope that this story told in a positive way will give hope and strength to those affected by such a disease.
The producer of the series Alexei Lyapichev noted that the series about cancer already exist, but by no means positive. Hence the idea to create a life-affirming, not without humor project on this topic. Nevertheless, plunging into it, the creators were initially aware of all the responsibility to the audience, who happened to experience this, and therefore tried to approach the issue as delicately as possible.
Thus, in the project declared as dramedy there is not much funny left. Anyone who expects to see a traditional sitcom will be disappointed. There is no humor as such in the series, which is justified: there is nothing to joke about. But the smile is caused by irony, ridicule of people who are unable to empathize and understand someone else's pain (at first, almost all characters fall under this definition).
It is also impossible to look at the main character with her energy, emotions and directness without a smile. Maksimova, perfectly combining both comedy and drama, infects with love of life with only one appearance in the frame.
The actress said that she also realized a tremendous responsibility to the audience, since talking about such things with humor is a bold and risky decision. According to Maximova, she loves brave people, and also understands the need to address such topics: oncology today concerns too many.
- © kinopoisk.ru
Polina Maximova drew attention to the need to raise the spirit of people who do not suffer from serious illnesses.
“When the first trailer came out and I posted it on social networks, teenagers from 16 to 20 years old wrote such terrible things to me: I can’t find one reason to live, but here it’s 257. And in our difficult times, especially now, in a coronavirus epidemic, the series is especially relevant ... Zhenya, my heroine, she’s such a lighthouse person, a firefly who illuminates the path and changes people, ”the actress explained.
In addition to life-affirming, the series has an educational function. In the characters of Julia Topolnitskaya and Anastasia Popova a collective portrait of people who do not know anything about cancer at all is presented. With their help, the creators convey to the audience basic information about the disease.