Harvey
Created by Stavros Kazantzidis and Allanah Zitserman

Love, Australian style.

In Russian Doll, a 2001 Australian film, billed as HARVEY (played by Hugh Waving -- Agent smith in The Matrix movies) is a meek, lonely private eye and wannabe writer in Sydney, Australia. Poor Harv's exceedingly unlucky in love (an adultery case leads him to his own fiancée), and he desperate to become a novelist, so he agrees to marry Katia (Natalia Novikova), a Russian mail-order bride who's become his best friend David's mistress, in an effort to keep her from being deported.

Naturally, the course of true love doesn't run smooth. David's wife learns about the upcoming wedding, and thinking her husband's best friend has finally found his soul mate, she insists on turning the wedding into a big deal, which in turn creates tension between David and Harvey. And meanwhile, Harvey and Katia slowly discover that maybe they don't dislike each other quite as much as they thought.

More a romantic comedy than a detective story, this is an amusing little trifle, reminiscent at times of Love at Large, but lacking that film's edge.

UNDER OATH

• "...this is no simple romance flick...there are little treasures to be found the more layers you get through...Hugo Weaving is simply excellent in the lead role....Russian Doll is one of the best Australian films of recent times..."
  (Urban Cinefile)

FILM

• RUSSIAN DOLL
  (2001, Beyond Films/Screen Artists -- Australia)
  90 minutes
  Screenplay by Stavros Kazantzidis and Allanah Zitserman
  Directed by Stavros Kazantzidis
  Produced by Allanah Zitserman
  Co-producer: Hugo Weaving
  Associate producer: Anna Feldman
  Executive produce: Bruno Charlesworth
  Original Music by Mark Rivett
  Starring Hugo Weaving as HARVEY
  Also starring David Wenham, Rebecca Frith, Sacha Horler, Helen Dallimore, Natalia Novikova, Alan Lovell, Felicity Price, Laurie Foel , Todd Worden, Brigid Dixon, Peter Beaumont, Peter Astridge, Alex Zitserman, Arkadi Uchitel, Alisa Katan, Isabella Katan, George Chernykh

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.