Russian Dolls

Last night I watched a film titled Russian Dolls. It realistically portrays the relationships of several friends approaching their thirties. We see the characters reaching out, longing for connection, searching for sexual fulfillment, suffering the heartache of loneliness. We see one struggling with single parenthood, one with her lesbian identity within the context of a judgmental society. We see one's feeling of conquest and power in capturing the attention of that desired, attractive (but so wrong for him) other. We see one's stark terror at making the commitment of marriage. We see the friction and hostility of a long-married couple. All of this is contrasted against our culture's literary tradition of fairy tales, romantic novels, and screenplays that promote the idea of "The One" and perpetually provide us with happy endings. Several times characters chide each other for having unrealistically high expectations for an idealized person who doesn't exist. Nevertheless, the characters continue steadfastly in their searches.

The film's narrator and protagonist muses towards the end of the film that (serially monogamous) relationships are like a series of nesting Russian dolls. You carefully open each doll, explore the space within, wondering "Is this it? Is this the one? The last?" Eventually, when you realize it isn't, it gets cast aside, discarded, and you open the next, hoping it will be that tiny, perfect one in the center, the one you've been waiting for, searching for.

At the end of the film, you see a formerly estranged, reconciled couple happily following each other down a subway escalator. A large sign above them says "Sortie." The ending seems to suggest that relationship is an exit or way out (of loneliness, perhaps?) but also a descent.