«Irony of Fate»: there will be no happy ending?

Recall the plot of the legendary film. A non-drinking surgeon, Zhenya Lukashin, takes a steam bath with friends in a Moscow bathhouse and, by mistake, after a few beers, flies to Leningrad. He opens the door with his key in the Leningrad apartment — exactly like the one where he had just moved in with his mother and where his bride Galya was waiting for him, clean and fresh, at the New Year’s table.

Leningrad teacher Nadya Sheveleva also lives with her mother and is preparing to meet her future husband, Ippolit, who is also a low drinker. Finds Zhenya sleeping. In the course of the film, Zhenya sobers up, and Hippolyte kicks ass. A spark flares up between Nadia and Zhenya, they forget about their previous intentions to get married and get married. Final scene: Nadia arrives with a forgotten broom to Zhenya in Moscow. His mother, to the question of her son’s new passion, «Do you think I’m frivolous?» says the catchphrase: «Wait and see.»

What could we see if the film continued, not in the continuation, filmed by another director, but in the canonical, Ryazanov interpretation? And what have we noticed in two episodes?

Three key dimensions of adulthood

If you omit unnecessary details and analyze the main line, the picture turns out to be depressing and typical — like those very new buildings on the numerous streets of Stroiteley. And despite the fact that the film is over forty years old, the situation has changed little, says psychologist Maria Dyachkova.

Two adults (one 36, the other 34) live with elderly mothers. Where are the dads — history is silent. “This is a feature of Russian families when a long-grown child lives with his mother. In Russia, there has been a crisis of growing up for many years, ”explains the psychologist. There are similar scenarios in some Mediterranean cultures: for example, the Italians have already voiced the problem of overgrown «mama’s sons» at the state level, the Greeks stay with their parents until the age of forty, or even later, and are in no hurry to start their own family — «have not yet worked up.»

“The final separation is when children leave their parents’ house, live on their own money and eat their own food, that is, they are separated in the most direct sense. These three parameters: your territory, money and food are key. Today it is rare to find a young man or girl whose behavior corresponds to three points at once.

Often, a son or daughter seems to live separately, having moved either to an apartment donated by their parents, or to a rented apartment, which the parents again pay for (or partially help to pay). In Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, it was customary to “shoot” money from mom or dad until payday. Often, retired mothers take out stash from somewhere out of a magic sleeve and give it to children and grandchildren or help them financially on an ongoing basis, “until death do us part.”

“If a child has grown so much that he left the parental nest, it does not matter whether he builds a family right away or does not create at all, whether he will have one woman or whether he will start changing them like gloves, whether he will have children or not. The bottom line is that it goes into the status of absolute autonomy. From this moment, you can count his maturity and adult life. And in this case, even a bed in a hostel or a rented apartment for six with friends, but for your own money, is better than living up to gray hair in the next room, or even in the same room with your mother, ”says Maria Dyachkova.

Arguments that not everyone has money for rented housing do not stand up to scrutiny. To earn 5000 rubles in order to contribute to the common pot with friends is quite within the power of a healthy young man. And in Soviet times, young people left for distribution to other regions, «broke off the umbilical cords» and built their lives. But there were also many people like Nadia and Zhenya.

«Mom will set the table and leave»

The «Irony of Fate» shows characters whose adult life has not yet begun. Yes, they are engaged in socially useful professions, look like an adult, buy and give gifts. But they formally live in the territories of their mothers. The teacher Nadia is even able to easily lend «fifteen rubles» to the surgeon from Zhenya’s polyclinic, who promises to send them by the first telegraph. Why does an adult man have no cash with him, but the heroine has free money? However, he could not take a large amount with him to the bathhouse (for a doctor and a teacher, one and a half chervonets is a lot of money). But at some point Zhenya is also not enough for a taxi.

Of all the participants in the love quartet, the most mature are the bride Galya and the groom Ippolit. They ask the right questions and make the right suggestions: “Tell me like a man to a man: what were you doing here?”, “Let’s celebrate the New Year together and not go to the Katanyans!”.

However, at some point, the seemingly mature Galya demonstrates that she has not gone far from her fiancé and is not averse to eating what Zhenya’s mother has prepared. The dialogue of two people who are going to get married is indicative:

— And mom? Will she meet with us?

— Mom will leave. She will cook everything, lay the table — of course, I will help her — and then go to a friend. You have a global mother!

To organize everything by ourselves from beginning to end does not occur to either one or the other. This happens when teenagers are left alone on New Year’s Eve for the first time, and parents (having previously prepared a treat) go to visit on the condition that everything will be cleaned by their return and no emergency will occur.

Solid and self-confident fiance Nadya also shows teenage drama and maximalism, “to spite her mother frostbitten ears”: he spoils an expensive coat under the shower, goes out into the street, wanting to freeze and die.

And yet, it is Galya and her unfortunate Leningrad colleague Ippolit who act as separators in the film, trying to separate Nadia and Zhenya from their mothers’ umbilical cords. They try, unfortunately, without success.

“Both are rejected, despite the fact that both Zhenya and Nadia went to marriage and strategically built the transition to a new format of relations. But they ultimately choose those who fall into the already familiar scheme, those who are on the same wavelength with them, for whom their mother plays the first violin in life. And they themselves catch this wave from another. This is not a union of two in a family, this is a union of four, the action «Two for the price of one.» Both behind him and behind her are their mothers.

The film has this dialogue:

— Mom, I think I’m getting married …

“It seems to me, too,” the mother agrees.

— Well, how do you like Galya, do you like it?

«You’re marrying her, not me!» — Marina Dmitrievna avoids answering.

But you are my mother! — retorts Lukashin.

“It’s important that you don’t forget about this after you get married!”

In words, both Zhenya and Nadia express their readiness for marriage. But in fact, these are children born to serve their mothers. “It’s hard to imagine teenagers being able to create strong mature relationships. We see how two children, Zhenya and Nadya, play as a family. Children often play doctors, sellers. But in reality, they do not treat anyone and do not really sell anything. They are playing».

The mothers of these adult children will remain the best for them in terms of care. Let us recall how Zhenya, after returning from the Leningrad «tour», says:

“I’ll probably stay an old bachelor… After all, why should I get married?” No wife will take care of me the way you do … Imagine, another woman will settle here with us. It is not known how you will get along … I will begin to worry. No, mother, let everything remain the same …

Mom, just ready to go to Galya and ask for forgiveness for her adult son, surrenders without a fight:

— My poor boy! Everything is formed. Lie down, rest.

“Hypertrophied maternal love resembles a sundew flower — beautiful, but predatory. He lures and absorbs, ”says Maria Dyachkova. Indeed, an adult man at the age of 36, unlike a 36-year-old «boy», will have to build partnerships: negotiate, adjust, compromise, accept the feelings of another person, his demands and claims, put forward his own. And this is not always convenient. It is much more convenient to accept unconditional maternal love — it, like breast milk, does not require chewing and that it is deserved and earned. She just is.

“When a normal life with a partner begins, the constant examination for maturity will begin, for “stretch marks” in self-image in terms of partnership.” Children of heavily protective mothers will most likely not stand it.

What would happen if…

However, even such a couple: a sissy and a daughter have a chance for an alliance.

“Perhaps they could carry brooms to each other all their lives and live each in their own city. Even strong love and passion will not distract them from the Great love for mothers. They are smart and romantic, and a guest marriage would keep their relationship going for a while. They would spend vacations and weekends together. But at the time when the film was made, this format was not welcomed. Yes, and Nadina’s mother is now unlikely to ban the son-in-law who came for the weekend: he is now not a thief, but a familiar person. And if anything, she will go to her friend Lyuba or sit on the stairs.

Question: will there be children in such circumstances? Let us recall how, at the beginning of the film, Marina Dmitrievna eavesdropped on the conversation between Galya and Zhenya from the kitchen. It takes a place and a time to at least conceive, and after birth, a fixed space to live. They really help to stabilize the relationship. Perhaps it was the appearance of the child that would have prompted Zhenya to tell her mother: “Surgeons are needed in Leningrad too, I went to my wife and child.” Or Nadia would have moved to her husband in Moscow.

“One of the two should give up the “romance” with mom. We remember the main psychological aspect — these people are in great connection with their mothers. The development of this connection is somewhere at the level of three to five years. They can’t be far from mom’s skirt. And in this sense, it would be easier for them to find a partner in the same city where they live. Then, even if you have to formally leave your mother, she will still be close.”

Maybe that’s why the director of «The Irony of Fate-2» Timur Bekmambetov did not leave Nadia and Zhenya a chance to build a family? According to the plot of the sequel, Nadia still chose Ippolit. And it was definitely not as frivolous as linking life with the madcap Zhenya Lukashin, who in the cinema was able to part with a single life and even had a son — the hero Konstantin Khabensky, who fell in love with the heroine Elizaveta Boyarskaya, daughter of Nadia and Ippolit.

Make room for a partner

Why is the film so loved by several generations?

Ryazanov ingeniously showed a “typical” problem not only with living space (“This is a separate apartment with my mother with a usable area of ​​32 square meters”). He showed that this is how everyone lives. That such overgrown sons and daughters living under their mother’s protection can be found in Moscow, and in Leningrad, and in any other city then in the USSR, and now in Russia. No matter where you look, you will certainly meet someone who is still tied by the umbilical cord to his mother. There is nothing wrong with children loving their parents. It is bad when, because of this love, there is no place for one’s own «I» and the emergence of maturity.

But do not take these words as a sentence, says Maria Dyachkova. They are more of a guide. “There is such a joke: the fetus is considered full-term when he graduates from the institute. If you are formally “full-term”, but have never lived on your own, it’s time to experiment: make individual trips, make hobbies, friends, find your own source of income that allows the experiment to take place. We must try to live separately from our parents and acquire independence and complete autonomy — where the mother has no influence.

As long as the main place in life is occupied by the mother, the place of the partner will be occupied. Either the partner will act as a donor in order to «nourish» someone else’s mother, or become a buffer. Or — in the role of a separator, a kind of prince on a white horse who will save you from prison or wake you from sleep: «Come with me, your mother completely enslaved you, I will show you real life.» Often an anti-scenario is played if local battles took place in the “child-mother” tandem, and then the partner acts as an improved version of the parent: no criticism, only support and protection.

“For those who are deeply entangled in family interweaving and dynamics, the partner does not appear against a clean background — he is selected for the role in the play “me and mother.” Therefore, it is important to gain independence before you meet a partner. When I am separated from the background, I have a chance to be seen as a separate person, and not as an «add-on» to the mother. Then I can meet my partner at eye level, on an equal footing.”