SXSW Review: ‘Idiotka’ is an Entertaining Send-Up of the Intersection of Family Heritage and Reality TV

Finding prosperity in a foreign country can be challenging, and children of immigrants often grow up with two different identities, one that speaks to their cultural and national heritage and the other to the feeling of belonging that comes with feeling like part of the country in which they were born. Those two things don’t have to be at odds, but running from the former to get closer to the latter can create conflict among different generations of families. Nastasya Popov’s feature debut Idiotka uses satire as a way of showcasing the gap between what people think they want and what actually matters in an entertaining send-up of the vanity of reality television.

Margarita (Anna Baryshnikov), an aspiring fashion designer who retags clothes and sells them as designer items, shares her home with her father Samuel (Mark Ivanir), a former doctor who has lost his license to practice, her grandmother Gita (Galina Jovovich), and her brother Nerses (Nerses Stamos), an aspiring musician. When Margarita receives a callback for a reality show offering a $100,000 prize, she jumps at the opportunity. When she’s told by producer Nicol (Camila Mendes) that her successful participation depends on making her home life part of the show, she has to consider whether that game-changing sum and the opportunities it will bring are worth shining a light on her family’s issues.

This film will surely be quite entertaining for those who live and breathe reality television, with Oliver (Owen Thiele) as the host of the show and Saweetie, Julia Fox, and Benito Skinner as the judges. The challenges are invasive and sometimes offensive in nature, and the commentary offered by the three judges is entirely airheaded and unintelligent. Nicol comes off as much brighter, but she also knows what gets great ratings, and it’s not as if she’s in the most plum role possible, surely looking ahead to her own future as well and doing what she needs to continue to advance herself.

Even if some audiences aren’t immersed in today’s reality trends, it should be possible to relate to the immigrant experience portrayed in the film. It comes from a very personal space for Popov, who noted much of her own family as an inspiration for the story. Gita simply wants her granddaughter to be happy and is all about supplying juicy content to boost her chances, while Samuel is so stuck in the disappointment of not being able to work in his chosen field that he can’t muster the energy to do anything productive. Margarita does take good care of them and her motivation for going on the show is rooted in part in helping their financial situation and fighting their eviction notice, but putting their family drama on display for the whole world to see still feels like a betrayal of their privacy.

It’s wonderful to see Baryshnikov, an alumna of projects like Dickinson and Love Lies Bleeding, score her first lead role. Buried under the very particular clothing of Margarita, she taps into her nervous energy to make her a compelling protagonist who manages to remain endearing despite some of her questionable choices. Ivanir and Jovovich are the heart of the film, which also benefits from humorous supporting players who make the reality show segments worth watching. Mendes, who was at SXSW last year with a bigger role in the underrated Música, extracts a great deal from her role as someone working the system who’s also able to see Margarita for who she really is. Popov arrives with a lived-in first feature, one that uses comedy to fuel its family story and which should appeal to a wide variety of audiences from any background.

Movie Rating: 7/10