The new film “The Idiot(s)” starring Johnny Flynn portrays Fyodor Dostoevsky as a flawed man struggling with gambling and arrogance while attempting to complete his novel, “The Idiot.” The film, directed by Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert, is based on Andrew D. Kaufman’s “The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky” and focuses on Dostoevsky’s honeymoon in Germany and the financial difficulties he and his wife, Anna, faced.
The filmmakers deliberately present Dostoevsky—played by Johnny Flynn—as a “wretched gambler, a drunken fool drowning in his childish arrogance,” distancing him from the “grandeur of his oeuvre.” The film aims to explore the value of Dostoevsky’s perspective even while exposing his less flattering characteristics. He is depicted as closer to the “doomed characters” in his novels than the idealized image often associated with him.
In Germany, Dostoevsky clashes with the “pompousness of Western Europe” and openly criticizes his compatriot, Ivan Turgeniev (Christian Friedel), for assimilating to Western comforts. The film is structured as a two-hander, giving equal dramatic weight to Anna (Aimee Lou Wood) and Fyodor, highlighting their financial struggles as Dostoevsky attempts to meet his writing deadline. The filmmakers use “scatological humor” to contrast the opulence of the European elite with the couple’s impoverished living conditions.
The film also portrays the decadence of the aristocracy, exemplified by a character played by Vicky Krieps, who “revels in the moral decay of her times.” Szumowska and Englert previously collaborated on “Never Gonna Snow Again” and “Infinite Storm.”
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