AllMovie

The classic tale of a beautiful young woman dreaming of a glamorous life in show business gets an Eastern Bloc twist in this comedy. Ilze (Iveta Pole) is a woman in her mid-twenties who lives and works in a dingy coastal town in Latvia, where she earns a living catching fish. Ilze believes she's smart and pretty enough for a better life, so when her cousin Linda (Madara Melberga) passes along news of a casting call for a movie musical being shot in the big city of Riga, Ilze decides to pull up stakes and give it a shot. Ilze's half-bright boyfriend Ojars (Varis Pinis) makes no secret that he disapproves of Ilze's ambitions, but she heads out to Riga anyway, only to spectacularly flub her audition. Undaunted, Ilze decides to stay in Riga and look for work; Linda gives her a place to stay, and Ilze finds new suitors in self-styled bohemian Arcibalds (Artuss Kaimins) and Bogdans (Andis Strods), an old friend of Ojars who may be even dimmer than the guys back home. Hoping to win back Ilze's heart by making her jealous, Ojars arrives in Riga with plenty of talk about his new plans to move to Ireland. Monotonija (aka Monotony) was written and directed by Juris Poskus; it was his first fictional film after winning acclaim for several documentaries.