“Close Gestalt”: a series about a loser medium puzzled viewers

The premiere of the 4 series of the comedy show “Close Gestalt” took place. The story of the poor medium Fyodor against the backdrop of the summer “film without fish” made the audience discuss the vicissitudes of the series. Someone scolds the lack of temperament of the lead actor Alexander Ilyin, someone does not like the banality of the plot, someone notes the simplicity of the jokes.

The plot of the series “Close Gestalt”

The show tells the story of the most ordinary car dealership manager Fedor Yartsev. His life is a continuous routine and there is absolutely no place for miracles in it: the work is tired, new scandals with his wife every day, and the evil mother-in-law constantly drips on the brain.

One day, our hero, tortured by everyday problems, accidentally falls off the 20th floor. But suddenly the fall does not end in a fatal outcome, but on the contrary, gives Fedor the ability to see ghosts. The restless souls ask Yartsev to help them finish their earthly affairs, because only after that they will be able to completely depart to another world. The manager is obviously not eager to get involved in this adventure, but his new friends are very persistent, and he reluctantly agrees.

Now Fedor Yartsev, the guide of lost souls, will have to help the dead close their last gestalt. But his clients are not kind ghosts at all, but very unpleasant personalities: an evil physical education teacher, a crime boss of the 90s, and even his own father, who left him with his mother 20 years ago.

The main concept of the comedy mini-series was invented by director Maxim Pezhemsky, known for the projects “Interns”, “Our Russia”, “Zaitsev + 1” and “Project Anna Nikolaevna”. About “Close Gestalt” Pezhemsky says: “It is primarily a tragicomedy. Each new episode will present a different story. Therefore, the actors in the frame play eccentrically, making their characters very bright. And the main character is a real portrait of a man of our time: he is a conformist, he is not in a hurry to make decisions, but life forces him to commit desperate acts, achieve his goal in some ways, and make mistakes in some ways.

actors

The role of the newly minted medium Fyodor Yartsev, who begins to see ghosts, was played by actor and musician Alexander Ilyin. Previously, he had already worked with Pezhemsky on Interns, in which he played Semyon Lobanov, and then consolidated his fame in the films The Legend of Kolovrat and From Five to Seven. About his new hero, Ilyin says that this character is, in fact, rather ambiguous: “Fedya, of course, is a kind person, but he only thinks about the future, forgetting that in the present he also has a life, a wife, close people . I really like such stories: excellent study, non-standard genre, a little touch of mysticism. I think it turned out interesting.”

Denis Vlasenko got the role of Kostya, Fedor’s young partner, who was possessed by the spirit of his own father. Vlasenko is a rising star of the domestic screen, many could already see him in the comedy series “Happy End”, “Hello again!” and the dramatic teen film Throws. According to the actor, Kostya can still greatly surprise an unprepared viewer: “Outwardly, he seems like a teenager, but in fact he is a man of about fifty in the body of a boy. He’s stuck somewhere in the middle between good and bad characters. He is hardened in the USSR, he has Soviet values ​​and traditions. There is a nice freedom for an actor in this image.”

Also in the series you can see Fedor Lavrov, the star of the series “The Last Minister” and the recent drama “A Tale for the Old”, Yulia Aug, who played the very unbearable mother-in-law of Fedor, and Andrei Zaitsev, known primarily for the Russian voice acting of Star Lord in the films of the universe “Marvel”.

Reviews of the audience: boring, but not hopeless

The series did not cause brightly negative reviews, but also some strong enthusiasm too. We can say that this is the case when the word “not bad” really describes the current picture very accurately.

On the positive side, those who liked the show attributed the actors and the plot. The authors turned out to be a comedy full of good jokes, dramatic moments and important morals. Ilyin’s acting skills are also at their best, according to his fans. The other part of the audience, on the contrary, was not at all satisfied with the writers’ sense of humor, and critics considered Ilyin in the title role “too cold.”

In cons, the audience also recorded the monotony of the action and dull visual performance. Perhaps Close Gestalt could be a textbook example of what happens when a solid script meets a rather mediocre direction. No, even the most sophisticated story, will look good in the cinema format if the author does not bother to spice it up with suitable film techniques and style. It was this gestalt that the creators could not close.

Because of this, the text, embodied on the screen, acquired the taste of chewed gum, because even the best plots in such cases begin to seem secondary. On a more general level, this means that the show can impress in some particular moments, it can present interesting characters or certain plot twists. But it is unlikely to captivate anyone for a long time, because most of the time the viewer will be watching

Release dates for the new Close Gestalt episodes

This comedy show was originally planned as a mini-series, so only 7 episodes will be released in the first season, of which 4 are currently available. The exact release dates for the latest episodes are:

September 1 – Episode 5

September 8 – Episode 6

September 15 – Episode 7

No news about season 2 from the creators of the series has yet been received. But they are unlikely to be able to resist the temptation to continue the story.

Read the material “What does it mean to close the gestalt”