Sputnik (film)

2020 Russian science fiction horror film

Sputnik

Promotional release poster

Directed by| Egor Abramenko
Written by|

* Oleg Malovichko
* Andrei Zolotarev

Produced by|

* Mikhail Vrubel
* Aleksandr Andryushchenko
* Fyodor Bondarchuk
* Ilya Stewart
* Murad Osmann
* Pavel Burya
* Vyacheslav Murugov
* Alina Tyazhlova
* Michael Kitaev
* Ilya Jincharadze

Starring|

* Oksana Akinshina
* Fyodor Bondarchuk
* Pyotr Fyodorov
* Anton Vasiliev

Cinematography| Maxim Zhukov
Edited by| Aleksandr Puzyryov
Egor Tarasenko
Music by| Oleg Karpachev

Production
companies

* Vodorod Pictures
* Art Pictures Studio
* Hype Film
* National Media Group Studio
* STS

Distributed by| Sony Pictures

Release date

* April 23, 2020 (2020-04-23) (Russia)

Running time

| 113 minutes
Country| Russia
Language| Russian
Budget| ₽190 million
(~US$2.6 million)
Box office| $354,023[1][2]

Sputnik (Russian: Спутник) is a 2020 Russian science-fiction horror film directed by Egor Abramenko in his feature directorial debut.[3] It stars Oksana Akinshina as a young doctor who is recruited by the Soviet military to assess a cosmonaut who survived a mysterious space accident and returned to Earth with a dangerous organism living inside him.[3] Alongside Akinshina, the film's cast includes Pyotr Fyodorov and Fyodor Bondarchuk.

Sputnik was scheduled to have its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2020 prior to the festival being postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[4][5] The film was released on video-on-demand in Russia on April 23, 2020.[6] It received generally positive reviews from critics.

## Plot

[edit]

In 1983, two Russian cosmonauts hear something moving outside their ship before it crashes in Kazakhstan. The sole survivor, Konstantin Veshnyakov, is taken to a military research facility run by Colonel Semiradov.

Semiradov recruits the controversial psychiatrist Dr. Tatyana Yuryevna Klimova. Veshnyakov cannot remember the crash, despite hypnosis treatments by facility scientist Yan Rigel. Klimova quickly discerns that Veshnyakov shows subtle symptoms of post-traumatic stress.

That night, Semiradov shows Klimova an alien emerging from Veshnyakov's mouth. Semiradov explains the creature emerges every night without Veshnyakov’s knowledge as he sleeps, and that it is responsible for Veshnyakov’s miraculous survival. The facility tried to extract the alien, but it is now symbiotically bonded to Veshnyakov and both will slowly die if separated too long. Klimova agrees to investigate how to separate Veshnyakov from the alien permanently – much to Rigel's jealous chagrin.

To test how Veshnyakov’s hormones react to stress, Klimova accuses him of killing his fellow cosmonaut, and taunts him about a son he abandoned to go to space. Afterwards, Klimova asks for Veshnyakov to stay in a normal room during daylight hours instead of a cell, to see how he reacts to normal civilian interactions. She apologizes to Veshnyakov for her harsh words, and he tell her that he only found out about his son one week before his space mission. He planned to meet his son after going home.

At night, Klimova interacts with the emerged alien from behind protective glass. She notices it fixate on a toy that belongs to Veshnyakov, and daringly asks to remove the glass so she can give the toy to the alien. The creature ignores Klimova to play with the toy. But when Klimova tries to touch the creature, it attacks her. Soldiers extract Klimova and contain the creature.

Klimova theorizes the alien is one with Veshnyakov, and it took interest in the toy because it reminds Veshnyakov of his son. She requests to take Veshnyakov to Moscow for treatment. Semiradov reveals this is impossible. His superiors in Moscow want to terminate Veshnyakov, and Semiradov has been lying about their research progress to keep Veshnyakov alive.

While reviewing surveillance footage of the alien, Klimova realizes it is edited. She confronts Rigel, and he takes her to see Semiradov feeding live humans to the alien at night. Rigel reveals that the creature needs cortisol from a living, terrified human to keep itself and Veshnyakov alive.

Disgusted, Klimova discreetly asks Veshnyakov to meet secretly. After Veshnyakov incapacitates his guards, Klimova shows him the bodies of the alien's victims. She explains the alien chose Veshnyakov as its host because his co-pilot had Addison's disease. Veshnyakov reveals he can remember everything the creature experiences, but hides it because he wants the Moscow authorities to approve his release. Klimova is horrified that Veshnyakov could accept sacrificing human lives, but Veshnyakov tells her that he will do anything to leave the facility and take care of his son and his mother.

Semiradov summons Klimova and reveals he knows she spied on the feeding. He defends his actions by explaining the alien is a powerful weapon the Soviets need to maintain peace, and that he only feeds it prisoners who have committed monstrous crimes. Semiradov allows Klimova to watch another feeding. However, Klimova requests to enter the feeding area and sings Veshnyakov's favourite song to the alien. At first, the creature softens and backs away. But when its food tries to run, the creature kills the prisoner anyways.

Klimova decides she must stop the experiment and help Veshnyakov escape. She convinces Rigel to help her. Then she convinces Veshnyakov that Semiradov will never let him leave. She plans to inject Veshnyakov with hormones that simulate Addison's disease, tricking the alien into rejecting Veshnyakov and permanently separating them. Rigel gives Klimova and Veshnyakov a set of car keys, and then confesses everything to the Moscow authorities by telephone just before Semiradov murders him.

Semiradov’s soldiers intercept Klimova and Veshnyakov. Cornered, Veshnyakov injects himself with the hormones prematurely, forcing the alien to emerge and attack the soldiers. The resulting chaos allows Klimova to drag Veshnyakov into the car and drive off. But Veshnyakov begins dying, and Klimova realizes he still needs the alien to live.

Klimova allows Semiradov to catch up, knowing he will bring the injured alien to force it back inside Veshnyakov. But before he can, Veshnyakov takes voluntary control of the alien and uses it to kill Semiradov and his men.

Klimova spots trucks coming from Moscow thanks to Rigel. However, Veshnyakov decides he must die with the creature to avoid more killing, and shoots himself in the head. Klimova survives and adopts Veshnyakov's son.

## Cast

[edit]

* Oksana Akinshina as Tatyana Yuryevna Klimova, a physician/neurophysiologist
* Fyodor Bondarchuk as Colonel Semiradov
* Pyotr Fyodorov as Konstantin Veshnyakov
* Anton Vasiliev as Yan Rigel
* Vitaliya Korniyenko as young Tatyana
* Aleksey Demidov as Kirill Averchenko
* Anna Nazarova as Nurse
* Aleksandr Marushev as Convict Ruben
* Albrecht Zander as Convict Seryj
* Pavel Ustinov as Convoy
* Vasiliy Zotov as Biologist
* Natalya Shvets (ru) as Chairwoman of the Commission

## Production

[edit]

Principal photography for the film took place in Moscow in the winter of 2018–2019. Most of the film's scenes were shot at the Shemyakin-Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry [ru].[7]

## Release

[edit]

Sputnik was scheduled to have its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2020[8][9] before the festival was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[4][5] Sony Pictures had slated a theatrical release for the film in Russia on April 16, 2020,[4] but the film was instead released on video-on-demand in Russia on the platforms More.tv, Wink and Ivi.ru on April 23.[6] IFC Midnight acquired the film's North American distribution rights earlier that same month.[6][8] The film was released in select theaters and on video-on-demand in North America on August 14, 2020.[3][10]

Upon release in Russia, over one million people streamed Sputnik on More.tv, Wink and Ivi.ru, making the film the most-streamed title across those services in two years, surpassing American titles and other Russian titles.[6]

## Reception

[edit]

### Box office and VOD

[edit]

In its debut American weekend, the film was the fifth-most rented film on Apple TV, and also grossed around $11,000 from 32 theaters.[11]

### Critical response

[edit]

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 88% based on 121 reviews, with an average rating of 7/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Effective space alien horror with a Soviet-era twist, Sputnik proves there are still some scary good sci-fi thrillers left in the galaxy."[12] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 61 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[13]

Pavel Voronkov of Gazeta.Ru called the film's story "charmingly uncomplicated", and wrote that, unlike "The Blackout by Egor Baranov (in which Fedorov also acted), it does not hurt at all to watch."[14] Dmitry Shepelyov of Igromania commended the film's visuals but lamented that "clichés become the main driving force of the story", concluding: "Tweak the script, write the characters better, add more bloody action, and Sputnik could be called an excellent fantasy thriller. But this is just a more or less competent B-category film."[15]

Matt Zoller Seitz, in his review of the film for RogerEbert.com, gave it a score of three-and-a-half out of four stars, and praised the relationship between the two main characters: "The performances and characterizations add heft, and the very Russian vibe of soulful heaviness sets it apart from its American cousins."[16] Ian Freer of Empire gave the film three out of five stars, praising its "fun creature design and good gore" and calling it a "blunt but effective thriller".[17] Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal wrote that the film's "strong performances, strikingly spare production design and somber cinematography convey a sense of something important going on. That's no small achievement in what proves to be a creature feature with flair."[18]

The New York Times' Glenn Kenny wrote that "While Sputnik doesn't make its substantial borrowings from other sci-fi pictures entirely new, it does juice them up enough to yield a genuinely scary and satisfying experience."[19] Tomris Laffley of Variety referred to the film as a "claustrophobic character study with gripping set pieces [and] serviceable spatters of gross-out B-movie gore"; she also praised Akinshina's "charismatic lead performance", comparing the character favorably to Ellen Ripley of the Alien franchise.[20] Conversely, John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the film's "intensely serious tone belies some awfully silly stuff in its plot", and summarized the film as being "Duller than it sounds."[21]

### Accolades

[edit]

Award  | Year  | Category  | Recipient  | Result  | Ref(s)

|
|
|
|
|

Saturn Awards | October 26, 2021 | Best International Film | Sputnik | Nominated  | [22]

## See also

[edit]

* Life (2017 film)

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Sputnik (2020)". The Numbers. Retrieved 31 August 2020.
2. ^ "Sputnik (2020)". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved 21 August 2020.
3. ^ a b c Lattanzio, Ryan (21 July 2020). "'Sputnik' Trailer: A Cosmonaut Brings an E.T. Invasion Back to Earth in Gory 'Alien' Homage". IndieWire. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
4. ^ a b c N'Duka, Amanda (3 April 2020). "IFC Midnight Picks Up Tribeca Thriller 'Sputnik'". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
5. ^ a b Vourlias, Christopher (8 June 2020). "Fedor Bondarchuk Helms First Doc, TV Series for Shingle Art Pictures Studio's Growing Slate". Variety. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
6. ^ a b c d Grater, Tom (1 June 2020). "Fedor Bondarchuk-Produced Sci-Fi Thriller 'Sputnik' Soars On Russian SVOD With 1M+ Streams". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
7. ^ Chachelov, Artur (24 April 2020). "Где и как снимали фильм "Спутник"" [Where and how to shoot the film Sputnik]. Kinometro.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 23 July 2020.
8. ^ a b "IFC Midnight Takes North American Rights to Russian Sci-fi Pic "Sputnik"". AMC Networks. 3 April 2020. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
9. ^ Squires, John (3 April 2020). "IFC Midnight Will Release Tribeca Sci-fi Thriller 'Sputnik' This Summer". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
10. ^ Sneider, Jeff (22 July 2020). "'Sputnik' Trailer: Russian Monster Movie Invites 'Alien' Comparisons". Collider. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
11. ^ Brueggemann, Tom (17 August 2020). "Canadian Box Office Reopens as 'Unhinged' and 'SpongeBob Movie' Take the Lead". IndieWire. Retrieved 20 August 2020.
12. ^ "Sputnik (2020)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango. Retrieved 27 December 2024.
13. ^ "Sputnik Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 13 August 2020.
14. ^ Voronkov, Pavel (22 April 2020). ""Спутник" — русский хоррор про пришельца-паразита". Gazeta.Ru (in Russian). Retrieved 22 July 2020.
15. ^ Shepelyov, Dmitry (27 April 2020). "Обзор фильма "Спутник". В Казахстане никто не услышит твой крик". Igromania (in Russian). Retrieved 22 July 2020.
16. ^ Seitz, Matt Zoller (13 August 2020). "Sputnik movie review & film summary (2020)". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved 18 August 2020.
17. ^ Freer, Ian (14 August 2020). "Sputnik (2020)". Empire Online. Retrieved 18 August 2020.
18. ^ Morgenstern, Joe (13 August 2020). "'Sputnik' Review: Red Scared". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 18 August 2020.
19. ^ Kenny, Glenn (13 August 2020). "'Sputnik' Review: A Return From Space, With a Little Something". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 August 2020.
20. ^ Laffley, Tomris (12 August 2020). "'Sputnik' Review: An Immersive, 'Alien'-Inspired Russian Sci-Fi Thriller". Variety. Retrieved 18 August 2020.
21. ^ DeFore, John (13 August 2020). "'Sputnik': Film Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 18 August 2020.
22. ^ Hipes, Patrick (4 March 2021). "Saturn Awards Nominations: 'Star Wars: Rise Of Skywalker', 'Tenet', 'Walking Dead', 'Outlander' Lead List". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 5 March 2021.

## External links

[edit]

* Sputnik at IMDb
* Sputnik at Metacritic
* Sputnik at Rotten Tomatoes