Why Don’t You Just Die! (2018) – Film Review

Director: Kirill Sokolov
Cast: Aleksandr Kuznetsov, Vitaliy Khaev, Evgeniya Kregzhde
Certificate: 18

by Sarah Morgan

While some might claim that a limited budget is constricting, I’d suggest that when it comes to film, the opposite is often true – far too many times we’ve had lavish productions which, despite having tonnes of cash thrown at them, turn into messy disasters.

Meanwhile, directors with a fragment of that to play with have to be inventive, forcing them to devise small-scale but enthralling pieces of cinematic entertainment.

Why Don’t You Just Die! certainly ranks in the latter category. Saint Petersburg-born writer-director Kirill Sokolov has crafted a short, sour and darkly comic saga set in one small apartment. Characters come and go, but he deftly ties together their stories, ending on a completely satisfying note. That this is his feature-length debut makes his achievement all the more astonishing.

“Intrigue and betrayal”

The first character to enter the fray is Metvey, a tough-looking young geezer with a hammer hidden in his waistband; as soon as we see it, we realise he’s not visiting the apartment of his in-laws to put up some shelves or help them with a tricky Ikea delivery.

He’s welcomed in by ageing cop Andrei, who could be the third Mitchell brother, and his wife Tasha, a clearly troubled soul, perhaps brow-beaten and despondent after spending years alongside her thuggish husband.

Metvey has been tasked with killing him by the couple’s daughter, who claims that daddy is a paedophile. However, the younger man is too slow to act and ends up chained in the bathroom.

A variety of figures then come and go, each attacked and sometimes dispatched in a myriad of gut-wrenching ways. Throw into the mix a bag of purloined loot hidden in a flimsy wall, and you’ve got intrigue and betrayal to contend with too.

“Director of note in the making”

Why Don’t You Just Die! is violence à la Quentin Tarantino – it’s not light on gore, but it has a tinge of the comic book about it. Imagine he’d directed Meet the Parents and you get the idea.

Sokolov is clearly a student of cinema too, adding elements – including the soundtrack – that wouldn’t be out of place in Sergio Leone movie.

There’s no from Russia with love here, but there is a director of note in the making. Here’s hoping he stays away from Hollywood’s spendthrift producers for now so that he can continue creating small-scale masterpieces.