Not Like Dad

Not Like Dad (Батя, 2021) is a Russian comedy-drama you can watch online on iFILM. A grown man drives his own kids to grandpa's village house, and the trip pulls him back into memories of his own childhood under a tough, old-school father.

The story keeps cutting between two eras. In the past, a small boy grows up beside his Batya, played by Vladimir Vdovichenkov — a man who raises a son the Soviet way, with a belt and silence where tenderness should be. In the present, that boy is a father himself, parenting in the exact opposite style, only to catch his dad's habits surfacing in his own voice. Elena Lyadova and Nadezhda Mikhalkova bring the warmth and the comic timing.

It runs a lean 75 minutes and lives on recognition: the dacha, the barbecue, the awkward "man-to-man" talk every Russian kid of the era remembers. A quiet film about love hiding behind gruffness. Good for an evening when you want to laugh first and tear up a little after. Stream Not Like Dad (2021) online on iFILM.