The Twelve Chairs: A weirdly charming hunt for furniture

Is this worth your time?

If you like old-school comedies that don't care about being fast-paced or polished, you might dig The Twelve Chairs. It's definitely for people who enjoy watching characters slowly unravel over a silly obsession. If you need explosions or tight editing, though, you’ll probably be bored within twenty minutes.

Watching Ferdinand go from a simple barber to a frantic treasure hunter is pretty great. It feels like a precursor to the kind of madcap energy you see in films like Zakroyshchik iz Torzhka. There's this specific, dusty charm to the whole thing that modern comedies just can't replicate.

The hunt for the loot

The core premise is so simple it hurts. You hide something in a chair, you lose the chair, you spend the rest of your life looking for it. It’s relatable in the most desperate way possible. The way the characters bump into each other while chasing these chairs is just slapstick gold.

Some of the reaction shots are held for way too long. Sometimes it works, sometimes it’s just awkward. There’s a moment near the middle where one character stares at a chair like it’s a long-lost relative, and it’s honestly the highlight of the film. 🤣

• The pacing is uneven, but in a way that feels intentional.
• The dialogue isn't trying to be deep, it's just trying to be funny.
• The set design is surprisingly cluttered for such a simple story.

I couldn't help but think about the frantic energy in Mickey the Detective while watching this. It's not the same genre, but that same sense of 'let's just go with it' is definitely there. You don't come to these movies for logic. You come for the mess.

There are parts that drag, for sure. You can tell where they were trying to fill time, and it feels a bit thin in spots. But then someone trips over a piece of furniture, or an argument breaks out over absolutely nothing, and you're back in it. It’s a bit messy, but that's why it feels like a real movie and not a product.

I didn't care much for the secondary characters, but that’s okay. They’re just there to get in Ferdinand's way. Sometimes the best part of a movie is just watching the lead struggle.