Chaika on AllMovie

The Seagull (Chaika) is a lively, unpretentious Russian filmization of Anton Chekhov's 1896 play. Little is done textwise to alter the basic story. Madame Trepleva, a popular but fading actress, aspires to "normality". This aspiration proves impossible so long as her self-destructive lover Trigorin and her neurotic playwright son Treplev are on the premises. Nina, a country girl who'd give her heart and soul to become an actress, hopes to be inspired by the presence of Arkadina, but her spirit is destroyed by Trigorin. For all its melancholy, director Yuri Karasik manages to find some humor lurking beneath the surface of The Seagull, especially in his near-slapstick staging of the closing sequence (which softens the impact of Treplev's offscreen suicide). Purists may complain, but, after all, Chekhov himself referred to his play as "A Comedy in Four Acts." Playing Nina is Ludmilla Savalyeva, best known in the US for her starring performance in Serge Bondarchuk's mammoth 1968 adaptation of War and Peace.