House of Death: A Heavy Look at Dostoevsky

Is it worth your time?

If you like your biopics to move fast or offer a simple lesson, skip this. This is for the folks who want to sit in a dark room and watch a man suffer through his own conscience. It is grim. It is slow. It feels like someone poured a glass of cold water over your head in the middle of winter.

You will probably enjoy this if: You have a soft spot for Russian literature and black-and-white cinematography that looks like it was etched with a razor.

You will probably hate this if: You prefer your movies to have, well, a sense of humor. Or even a sense of movement.

The film hangs on this idea of Dostoevsky shifting from a firebrand radical to someone who just wants to bow down and accept suffering. It’s a huge psychological pivot, and the movie handles it with all the grace of a sledgehammer. But in a good way? Sometimes.

There is this one scene where he’s just staring at a wall. I swear it goes on for at least an hour—maybe it was two minutes. It doesn't matter. You start to feel the texture of the plaster.

It reminds me a bit of the suffocating weight you find in Vampire, where the environment is doing just as much acting as the people. The shadows are heavy. They feel like they’re trying to crush the dialogue.

The performances are… intense. Everyone is shouting with their eyes. Andrey Fayt does a lot of heavy lifting here, looking like he hasn't slept since the mid-19th century. It’s a very committed kind of acting.

I found myself distracted by the furniture. The chairs look incredibly uncomfortable. It’s a small detail, but when a movie is this sparse, you start paying attention to the wood grain and the flickering light on the floorboards.

There’s a weird, jagged energy to how it’s put together. It isn’t smooth. It feels like the editor was trying to cut out the soul of the thing and only accidentally left the good parts in. It’s messy.

Sometimes the preaching about mercy gets a little loud. It starts to feel like a lecture, which is a shame because the quiet moments of despair are where the film actually breathes. Stop talking and show me the misery, I thought.

It’s nowhere near as frantic as something like Circus Time, obviously. It sits in a different zip code entirely. If you’re looking for a romp, you’re in the wrong place.

I left the screen feeling like I needed a long nap. Is it a masterpiece? No. Is it something that stays in your teeth like a piece of popcorn shell? Absolutely.

• The lighting makes everyone look like they’re already ghosts.
• The pacing is glacial, but honestly, what did you expect?
• There is a lot of staring. A lot of staring.
• If you like your history lessons served with a side of existential dread, you’re home.