Minaev just can't write a good book, so the director just couldn't make a good movie from this trashy scenario.

Dazzling Moscow. Max, 30, living fast, a handsome, witty, wealthy and successful businessman, expected to become the director of the Moscow branch of an international bank. "I made it in life" he says at the beginning of the film. What does he do with all that? Earn lots, spend lots: trendy clubs, womanising, sports cars, drugs, alcohol, burning the candle at both ends. Nothing is going to stop him, or is it? Enter Julya, met by chance: young, attractive, full of dreams, member of a gang of crazy revolutionary idealists who think money stinks and to lead such an empty life as Max does stinks even more.

A moralising, somewhat predictable film: chaos and a dissipated life versus an orderly one, the corrupting power of money, egoism, the pointlessness of it all.

Splendid acting by many of the main characters, particularly by Danila Kozlovsky, who plays Max, very convincing as a modern anti-hero. A portrait of the brightest and best snared by Russia's money and fast life, but with a good heart hidden away somewhere, which may be recovered provided they are ready to go all the way through purgatory.