TIFF: Iannucci Goes to Russia for "The Death of Stalin"
by Chris Feil
Armando Iannucci has another high farce with The Death of Stalin, an almost operatic comedy of power struggles and masculine posturing. Based on the comic books by Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin, the film is a gleefully anachronistic satire that will feel all too uncomfortably close to our current reality. This makes for a more charged tone than Iannucci’s previous contemporary political skewering. But fear not: his comic mind has stayed unpretentious. As ever, it’s his subjects that take themselves all too seriously.