AUSTIN, Texas—Growing up, I lived five minutes away from my Nana, who was at our house almost every night, and when she wasn’t, it was because I was at her house, or she had art class or card games with her friends. Losing her during my freshman in college remains one of the biggest losses of my life, and I miss her every day.
I share this personal anecdote because I entered the Zach Theater in Austin, Texas last week thinking Idiotka—Nastasya Popov’s feature-directorial debut which premiered at SXSW—was going to be a fun little satiric film about fashion and reality television. The cast includes Julia Fox and Benito Skinner and based on the film’s two-sentence description, I knew our main character, Margarita (Anna Baryshnikov), was either going to “slay, serve, or survive.” So imagine my shock when the final scene faded to credits and I felt the need to pretend my contact lens was fucked up so I could discreetly wipe the tears from my eyes.
Margarita is an aspiring, struggling designer and second-generation immigrant who sews designer labels on old clothes to sell online. She’s also a bit of a twenty-something tornado, with a haphazard personal style that looks like a toddler’s idea of what a “fashion designer” should wear (said with love). She lives in West Hollywood’s Russian immigrant neighborhood with her unemployed father, who went to prison and lost his license for Medicaid fraud, her brother, who’s a waiter but dreams of being a musician and waits on producer Zach Bia, and—wait for it—her grandmother. But they’re facing eviction from their apartment, where Margarita and her grandmother share the bedroom and her dad and brother share the pull-out couch, for owing five months’ rent. So Margarita enters Slay, Serve, Survive—a fashion reality competition for “underprivileged” designers—to try and win $100,000. Ultimately, she has to decide if selling out her family is worth saving their family home.
What follows is a heartwarming family drama about the broken American dream that avoids being too cheesy, and a sharp social satire on the predatory and absurd nature of reality television that doesn’t hammer you over the head with irony.
The reality show’s producer, Nicol Alejandra Garcia, played by a very intimidating Camila Mendes (who also served as a producer), says lines like “We love unhinged,” teaches Margarita how to emotionally manipulate the audience, and basically begs her to say she suffers from mental illness. (She doesn’t, but Nicol quickly moves on when she learns her father was recently in prison.) Nicol eventually takes Margarita under her wing, and they form a complex friendship in which Nicol convinces Margarita to share more and more of her family life—for better or for worse.”
Making fun of reality shows is pretty tired and true at this point, but Idiotka pulls it off, thanks in no small part to its stellar cast. Skinner, Fox, and Saweetie, who play Serve, Slay, Survive’s judges, left me wanting so much more. I’m not asking for a sequel; but I think the reality TV format could definitely give us a few more films, or YouTube videos, or something, where Skinner’s Jonathan Smith gets to say more lines like: “I actually supported criminal justice reform a few years ago and you’re right,” he says to Saweetie’s Candy. “It’s not fixed yet.” Slay, Serve, Survive’s host, Oliver Knowles (Owen Thiele), was another standout character whose line about the contestants “serving…their community” was one of multiple moments when the entire audience laughed.
Above all else, Idiotka brimmed with love and humor, thanks to Galina Jovovich’s performance as Margarita’s grandmother, Gita Levlansky—the heart and soul of the whole film. Both figuratively and literally, since we learn in the end that Popov dedicated it to her own grandmother. Gita is loud, fabulous, and spirited; puts her son and grandson in their place; and is willing to do anything to help her granddaughter win—including creating a wild, insane scene to get Margarita more screen time. Even before the tearful ending, I found myself choking up at least half a dozen times throughout.
I’m very excited to see what Popov does next; I’m eager to learn what project Mendes produces next; I hope Fox, Skinner, Saweetie, and Thiele get cast together again; and I’m grateful to Jovovich for giving my heart a hug and my eyes a good rinse.
