Mermaid

Mermaid (Русалка, 2007) is a Russian fantasy comedy-drama you can watch online on iFILM, written and directed by Anna Melikyan. Alice has grown up convinced she can whisper wishes to the sea and shift events her way. Everyone around her calls it delusion.

At eighteen she leaves a small coastal town for Moscow, chasing something she cannot name. The city gives her what cities give dreamers: a cramped job, a blank crowd, and a man who barely registers she exists. Maria Shalayeva plays Alice with a lightness that keeps the film from sinking into self-pity; Yevgeny Tsyganov is the oblivious love interest she cannot shake.

Melikyan's film is a city fairy tale that refuses the easy ending but insists that being odd is not a flaw. Watch Mermaid online on iFILM.