Ms. Hen reviews To the Lake

 To the Lake

Directed by Peter Kostomarov

2019

Ms. Hen does not review that many series, but she does watch at lot of Netflix and Amazon Prime. She has to do something to rest her hen brain after she works and reads all day. She reads a lot in between her working time, on the train, before she starts work, on her lunch break, but nighttime is the time to relax and watch things, most of the time. 

This series is made in Russia, and has subtitles, which does not bother Ms. Hen. She likes listening to different languages, because she can learn some foreign words that way. This show is about a virus that hits Moscow, and as soon as people get it, they die. They get pulmonary problems, their eyes turn red and white and they die. Ms. Hen thinks this show is prophetic, but it is not an unusual concept to imagine.

When the virus hits, two families who are not close go on the road to escape the military chasing them, because they killed some people who attacked their homes outside of Moscow. Sergey's father, Boris tells the group he has a house that he built on a lake that nobody knows about, and they would be safe there. The groups heads to the lake.

This show is full of quirky characters, Leonid, a misogynistic rich man with a pregnant ex-stripper wife, Marina, and an unstable alcoholic daughter, Polina; Sergey, whose ex-wife Ira shows up with their son Anton, and his girlfriend Anya, and her son with Aspergers, Misha. Misha is obsessed with Polina. Ira is jealous of Anya because she and Sergey started dated while she was his psychologist. Later a doctor, Pavel shows up, and tries to help everyone, and falls in love with Ira.

Ms. Hen thinks this show would be different if it took place in the United States, or anywhere in the West. Russians have a deep seated culture or paranoia, combined with the fact that everyone is a jerk. However, they are fiercely loyal to the ones they love.

The older men on this show are all pigs, Leonid and the doctor's uncle, but Russian men from their time acted that way. The younger men, Sergey and Pavel, are intelligent, sensitive men, and are a sharp contrast to the older men. Ms. Hen thinks this is an interesting way to depict characters, and is not sure if it's true to life, because she is not acquainted with many Russian men, but believes it must be honest.

This show is a typical post-apocalyptic story about people going on the road to find safety from something evil. The road trip story makes great cinema. But we know in real life, for us, it hasn't been like this, most people dealing with the current virus are told to stay in their houses and not go anywhere.

There is a mention of a chicken in this show, when the doctor tells the group that he found a chicken in the freezer of the house they were staying in, and wanted to cook it, to cure people, as popular belief teaches. Ms. Hen thinks that means chicken soup will make a person healthier, but she is not sure if it's the same with viruses.

This show is important, because it's about a virus running rampant in Russia, and could be seen as something related to what is happening now. People who are sci-fi fans know that anything is possible, and to learn what could happen with any scenario could be helpful to our lives, while we're not watching Netflix or reading books and escaping the horrors of everyday life.