Review by
Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Matthew Ross
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Ana Ularu, Boris Gulyarin, Ashley St.
George, Veronica Ferres
What happened to the film star? Where did the marquee names, the glittering
icons, the beautiful people all go? The film ‘star’: a metaphor suggesting
something sparkling and out of reach, above us all yet still magnetically
influencing the ebb and tides of our own meagre existences. You just don’t
get them anymore, not in the way that you used to. It’s hard to imagine
Madonna doing a 2018 redux of Vogue featuring the current Hollywood
constellation (‘Zendaya, Gal Gadot/ Seth Rogan, smoking pot’?). There
are probably lots of reasons why film stars don’t exist anymore (content
driven streaming services, the demise of institutionally controlled print
media, social media - somehow), but when one does abide, shining like the
Northern star among the flash in pans, it is cause for cineaste joy.
Keanu Reeves is such an idol. Keanu, even the name has iconic
resonance, associated now and forever with an almond shaped ageless face,
laconic charisma and compelling performances, performances which stretch the
possibility (and plausibility) of cinematic presentation, with lines
delivered with such obscure diction that often the very exegesis of the
script is open to interpretation. Then there’s the glorious meta-mystique,
the tantalising speculation about his sexuality (a homoerotic reading of
The Matrix, with its androgynous symmetries, is long overdue), his confident
graduation from stoner kid to besuited and often sinister characters, that
careful curation of roles (unlike Nic Cage, who, love him, is forced to
swallow any old shit flung at him), and always his smooth, seemingly eternal
beauty (now roughed up with an enviable beard, the grey flecks of which are
the great man’s only concession towards mortality).
A quirky action star, Keanu’s roles have always actually been diverse and
interesting in themselves; recently, along with his
John Wick
renaissance, he was incredible in Eli Roth’s Knock Knock and
it was funny to see him pop up as a nasty landlord in the godawful
The Neon Demon. Personally, I like my Keanu to be a tough guy with a fatal streak of
kindness or sentimentality, and, with the pounding drums which open
Matthew Ross’s Siberia signifying a thriller, along
with Keanu’s (Lucas’) role as a diamond dealer, it looks, just as with
wealthy Lucas and his expensive lifestyle, like we’re quids in.
The plot has something to do with a blue diamond (always with the blue
these days; Heisenberg’s meth, Marvel’s tesseract…), which Keanu is selling
to some generic Russian bad dudes. Problem is that his Russian partner goes
missing, which leaves Keanu stranded in some shit-kicker town in the cold
wilds of Siberia. He does get into a few fights with the locals and, of
course, starts a steamy affair with a local waitress, Katya (Ana Ularu
- very good and also not very ugly).
For nigh on two hours that’s it really as the film effortlessly, slowly
moves towards its denouement. The languid pace which the opening scenes set
up is a groove that the film finds hard to shake off. If it wasn’t for
Keanu, the light swooning about the sleek structures of his face, the
narrative lazily orbiting about his star persona, I’m not sure how much
there would be to recommend Siberia. The love affair is touchingly and believably construed, with the sense
that the infinite desolation and snowy extremities of the landscape is
forcing our leads to warm intimacy (although, sorry Keanu, the sex scenes,
as always with Mr. Reeves, are hilariously awkward and unconvincing). And,
following its espionagey opening, Siberia intriguingly rides
towards Western horizons, with its stranger in a small-town stylings (and
the climax’s shoot out siege).
Within this generic pattern, the film accordingly begins to comment upon
masculinity; there is a bizarre penis comparing scene which kicks off a
fight in the café, most of the banter and insults specify being a ‘girl’ and
themes of honour permeate. But this thematic pursuit is rendered unsound by
the otherwise broad and brutal stereotyping of the Russians, who all have
chips on their shoulders the size of the Kremlin, apart from sexy Katya who
is given to proclaiming homilies concerning wisdom garnered from her
‘grandpa’.
The film’s script was written by Scott Smith, author of two
incredible novels which gave way to a couple of great films (A Simple Plan
and The Ruins, and that’s it: if a genie offered me three wishes one of them could well
be that Smith wrote a few more books), but there is none of the bare tension
and moral compromise that made Smith’s literary canon so deliciously
moreish. That said, it passes pleasantly enough, but a lot of how successful
Siberia is for you will depend upon your tolerance of Keanu.
At one point, discussing the sapphire macguffins, a character fudges the
etymology of the word diamond, stating that the root word is from ancient
Greek and means "unbreakable, inflexible": Siberia is no
diamond in the rough, but such adjectives could yet just as easily be
applied to the enduring star persona of its shining lead. Diamond
geezer!
Siberia is on Amazon Prime Video UK
now.