The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!

The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath! (1976) is the Soviet New Year's classic by Eldar Ryazanov that you can watch online on iFILM. It premiered on Soviet television on 1 January 1976 and has aired every New Year's Eve since — for tens of millions of viewers it is as inseparable from the holiday as midnight itself. Andrei Myagkov, Barbara Brylska and Yuri Yakovlev lead the cast.

The premise runs on Soviet-era urban planning: every city had the same streets, the same apartment blocks, the same locks on the same doors. After too much vodka at the bathhouse, Zhenya boards the wrong flight and ends up in Leningrad instead of Moscow. He takes a cab to his address, his key opens the door, and he falls asleep in what he genuinely believes is his bed. Nadya comes home to find him there. Her fiancé Ippolit arrives shortly after. The comedy that follows is warm, absurd and quietly sad all at once.

Ryazanov co-wrote the screenplay with Emil Braginsky from their own stage play. Verses by Bella Akhmadulina, Boris Pasternak and Yevgeny Yevtushenko are woven through the film as songs performed by Alla Pugacheva and Sergei Nikitin — which is part of why it holds up after nearly fifty years. Stream The Irony of Fate (1976) online on iFILM.