The Irony of Fate

Irony of Fate
Theatrical release poster.
Written by	Emil Braginsky Eldar Ryazanov
Directed by	Eldar Ryazanov
Starring	Andrey Myagkov Barbara Brylska Yuri Yakovlev
Theme music composer	Mikael Tariverdiev
Country of origin	Soviet Union
Original language(s)	Russian
No. of episodes	2
Production
Producer(s)	Evgeny Golynsky
Running time	184 minutes
Production company(s)	Mosfilm
Release
Original network	Programme One
Original release	1 January 1976
Chronology
Followed by	The Irony of Fate 2

The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath! (Russian: Ирония судьбы, или С лёгким паром!, literally: The Irony of Fate, or With Light Steam; trans. Ironiya sudby, ili S lyogkim parom!) is a 1976 Soviet romantic comedy television film directed by Eldar Ryazanov. The screenplay was written by Emil Braginsky and Ryazanov, loosely based on the director's 1971 play Once on New Year's Eve (Russian: Однажды в новогоднюю ночь). The film was filmed in 1975 at the Mosfilm Studios. Simultaneously a screwball comedy and a love story tinged with sadness, it is one of the most successful Soviet television productions ever and remains highly popular in modern Russia.

The key subplot is the drab uniformity of Brezhnev era public architecture. This is made explicit in a humorous animated prologue, in which architects are overruled by politicians and red tape. This results in the entire country being polluted with identical, unimaginative multistory apartment buildings of the sort that can, in fact, be found in every city, town, and suburb across the former Soviet Union. These buildings are uniform right down to the door key of each apartment. The rest of the film is live-action.

Following their annual tradition, a group of friends meet at a banya (a traditional public "sauna" bath) in Moscow to celebrate New Year's Eve. The friends all get very drunk toasting the upcoming marriage of the central male character, Zhenya Lukashin (Andrei Myagkov) to Galya (Olga Naumenko). After the bath, one of the friends, Pavlik (Aleksandr Shirvindt), has to catch a plane to Leningrad; Zhenya, on the other hand, is supposed to go home to celebrate New Year's Eve with his fiancée. Both Zhenya and Pavlik pass out. In an airport scene in which the two friends both become split between sleeping bodies and waking, talking spirits, they cannot remember which of their unconscious selves is supposed to be catching the plane and eventually mistakenly decide that it is Zhenya and push him sleepwalking on a plane instead of Pavlik. On the plane, he collapses onto the shoulder of his annoyed seatmate, played by the director himself (Ryazanov) in a brief comedic cameo appearance. The seatmate helps Zhenya get off the plane in Leningrad. He wakes up in Leningrad airport, believing he is still in Moscow. He stumbles into a taxi and, still quite drunk, gives the driver his address. It turns out that in Leningrad there is a street with the same name (3rd Builders' street), with a building at his address which looks exactly like Zhenya's. The key fits in the door of the apartment with the same number (as alluded to in the introductory narration, "...building standard apartments with standard locks"). Inside, even the furniture is nearly identical to that of Zhenya's apartment. Zhenya is too drunk to notice the differences, and goes to sleep.