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With anger and conviction, this 1966 film denounced the Russian reality of that time, the one that oppressed human dignity and turned man into a slave. According to some film historians, this very 1966 movie started the whole wave of "shelved" films during the Brezhnev era. Visually, the film evokes the kinds of poverty and privation seen in the drawings of Daumier. In this farce/satire, Pseudominov is a bridegroom who is understandably nervous about the ceremony; he is also nervous about being married to his astonishingly ugly bride. A lot of rowdy drinking and joking is going on, when a man known as "His Excellency" arrives, a man with nearly unlimited power to affect the lives of all concerned. The entire wedding party is terrified, and they (and the dignitary) drink until they are in a drunken stupor. His Excellency is by now on the floor, drunkenly talking to the guest's shoes. The bridegroom and his new bride quarrel before they can consummate the wedding, and the sleeping arrangements of all concerned have more to do with the need of these inebriated people than with propriety or lust. Eventually, they all awaken, and the sinister appearance of the dignitary is changed: he is seen begging in front of Pseudominov's ramshackle home.