‘BEAUTY IN TROUBLE’ *** 1/2
In the deeply affecting and darkly amusing “Beauty in Trouble,” inspired by the Robert Graves poem of the same name, director Jan Hrebejk and co-writer Petr Jarchovsky embrace with terrific panache the eternal human comedy and skewer the lingering corruption of the former Czechoslovakia’s bleak communist era. At once sardonic and compassionate, it is a masterwork, an instant classic with a superb ensemble cast and charged with that highly developed sense of the absurd that is the hallmark of Eastern European cinema.
In the wake of the severe 2002 Prague flood, Jarda (Roman Luknar), an auto mechanic, resorts to stripping stolen cars to support his family. His wife, Marcela (Anna Geislerova), meets Evzen (Josef Abrham), whose heisted Volvo leads to Jarda’s arrest, at a police station. The silver-haired, bearded Evzen is a wealthy Czech emigre, long living in Tuscany. He has returned to Prague to reclaim his family home, seized by the communists in 1956 and now returned to him. Kind, attractive and sophisticated, Evzen could prove to be Marcela’s salvation.
Consistently inventive and surprising, “Beauty in Trouble” evokes human nature in all its strengths and weaknesses, contradictions and ambiguities. It is itself a beauty — rich in imagery, deftly paced and structured.
In Czech with English subtitles. Running time: 1:50. Opens Friday at the Wilmette and Music Box Theatres.
