It spooks. The Russian series "God Complex" will appeal to connoisseurs of detective thrillers
Miscellaneous / / April 06, 2023
The story about the disappearance of a girl in the center of Moscow turned out to be very concentrated.
On February 3, streaming service KION premiered two episodes of God Complex. The project was directed by Fluza Farkhshatova (“Ask Marta”), and the script was written by Alena Zvantsova (“The Thaw”). Starring Kirill Kyaro ("The Sniffer", "Epidemic"), Daniil Strakhov ("We are from the Future"), Marina Vasilyeva ("Dislike"), Olga Lerman ("Kalashnikov", Nikolai Schreiber ("Arrhythmia"), Shamil Khamatov ("Bride").
An eight-year-old girl goes missing in the center of Moscow. Mother, father and stepfather are trying to find her, sorting things out along the way. At the same time, businessman Vladimir turns to psychiatrist Alexei, who is breathing unevenly towards the children and is struggling with the desire to kill. While the investigators suspect the girl's father of the missing child, the psychiatrist conducts his own investigation, considering his patient a potential maniac.
Thriller without impurities
The God Complex looks like a concentrated thriller, from which everything that has nothing to do with the plot has been thrown out. Politics, social tension, even work and hobbies - the characters live strictly within the framework that the plot sets them. For example, the father of a missing girl is a pianist only to give a concert even after the child has disappeared - this is a way to show how callous he is. Psychiatrist comes to work only to talk to a man who behaves like a maniac.
Bracketing absolutely everything that is not related to the plot makes The God Complex a universal series - it can be filmed in any country in the world. From Moscow, declared as a place of action, there is practically nothing. This becomes a problem in some episodes and raises questions.
If a child leaves a Moscow restaurant (a good one, judging by the way of life of the characters) and goes out into the street, then why can't the movements be tracked through the cameras? Probably, the shooting would have been done by the institution itself. Yes, there are security cameras outside.
In another scene, you can see a completely empty subway in which a girl is walking. It is unlikely that she does this at night, when some station is really deserted. It turns out that in Moscow there is an empty metro during the day or in the evening.
Empty heroes
The existence of history in a vacuum leads to other problems - it is impossible to empathize with the characters, they are too "cinematic". More precisely - "serial", that is, simpler. All the main characters of the series turned out to be bright, but empty. The very first appearance on the screen explains who they are, and subsequent revelations do not change anything.
Almost all of them are narcissistic and accustomed to success people. Any failure for them is a tragedy. It seems that this is why the pianist treats the disappearance of his daughter in much the same way as a failed performance. The obsession of the characters with themselves practically turns them into maniacs.
The "God Complex" resorts to the old trick, according to which all the heroes of the story can be equally bad (the doctor is a patient at heart, and the investigator is a criminal). The problem is not only in predictability (this technique is used in every second detective story), but also in implementation - it does not work well with empty heroes.
Constant pressure
From the very first frames, the “God Complex” manages to catch up with horror. The feeling that something sinister is about to happen is constant, even if it is not always justified. Given that there are only five episodes in the season, it can be assumed that the tension will not subside until the end - too short a distance for several storylines.
The main source of tension is businessman Vladimir, who comes to see a psychiatrist. Each of his appearances on the screen looks like a game with the audience and their expectations. Vladimir looks and acts like a maniac who kidnapped and killed a child. Literally all his words, memories of childhood and visions allude to this - only a frank confession is missing. But if we accept that he really is the killer, then almost all the characters will turn out to be simply meaningless.
God Complex is a series that is completely focused on the plot. Empty heroes living in a plastic world are not sympathetic. Because of this, the series is interesting exactly as long as the plot intrigues the viewer. Which, however, does not make The God Complex bad - it's just too generic, and those who really love detective thrillers will like it.
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Text worked on: author Dmitry Kamyshenko, editor Alina Mashkovtseva, proofreader Natalya Psurtseva