History Film / TheInnerCircle

Creator/TomHulce plays Ivan Sanchin, Creator/LolitaDavidovich his wife Anastasia. With the exception of Creator/BobHoskins as NKVD chief Lavrenti Beria, most of the other characters (including Stalin) are played by Russian actors, e.g. Alexander Zbruyev as Josef Stalin.

* PublicDomainCharacter: Josef Stalin and Lavrenti Beria.

* FauxAffablyEvil: Stalin and Beria. Stalin seems friendly enough as long as you don't cross him in a real or imagined way that sets off his paranoia. Beria puts on a friendly front to win the confidence of a woman he wants to seduce or rape.

* CrapsackWorld: In addition to the life of poverty and constant threat of arrest due to life under Stalin, the characters also have to face the additional threat of annihilation by Nazi Germany during World War II.

* DriventoSuicide: [[spoiler: Anastasia is forced into prostitution by Beria, only released when she gets pregnant and is no longer desirable to him. When she returns home to Ivan, she commits suicide by hanging herself]].

* QuestionableConsent: Anastasya is taken away from her husband to be Beria's mistress. In their one scene together, she seems to be charmed by him and additionally, when she briefly sees her husband before they're separated, she doesn't seem overly distressed or claim she was raped, despite sex clearly having occurred. However, Beria is, historically, very well known to have been a prolific {{serial rapist}} and Anastasya later commits suicide rather than give birth to his child, having suffered extreme {{sanity slippage}}.

* FauxAffablyEvil: Stalin and Beria. Stalin seems friendly enough as long as you don't cross him in a real or imagined way. Beria puts on a friendly front to win the confidence of a woman he wants to seduce or rape.
* PublicDomainCharacter: Joseph Stalin and Lavrenti Beria.

* BaldOfEvil: Lavrenti Beria, the feared sadistic director of the NKVD has a bald pate.

* DidWeJustHaveTeaWithCthulhu
* QuestionableConsent: Anastasya is taken away from her husband to be Beria's mistress. In their one scene together, she seems to be charmed by him and additionally, when she briefly sees her husband before they're separated, she doesn't seem overly distressed or claim she was raped, despite sex clearly having occurred. However, Beria is, historically, very well known to have been a prolific {{serial rapist}} and Anastasya later commits suicide rather than give birth to his child, having suffered extreme {{sanity slippage}}.

* WickedCultured: Stalin.

* DidYouJustHaveTeaWithCthulhu

''The Inner Circle'' (''Ближний круг'') is a 1991 Russian film by Creator/AndreiKonchalovsky based on the true story of Ivan Sanchin, the KGB officer who was the private film projectionist of IosifStalin from 1939 until the dictator's death in 1953. Told from Sanchin's view, the sympathetic but tragically flawed hero maintains unwavering faith in his "Master" despite the arrest of his neighbors and his involvement with their daughter, his wife's affair with the chilling StateSec chief Lavrentii Beria and her tragic decline, and the deadly political machinations within the Kremlin he witnesses firsthand.

* PublicDomainCharacter: IosifStalin and Lavrenti Beria.

''The Inner Circle'' (''Ближний круг'') is a 1991 Russian film by AndreiKonchalovsky based on the true story of Ivan Sanchin, the KGB officer who was the private film projectionist of IosifStalin from 1939 until the dictator's death in 1953. Told from Sanchin's view, the sympathetic but tragically flawed hero maintains unwavering faith in his "Master" despite the arrest of his neighbors and his involvement with their daughter, his wife's affair with the chilling StateSec chief Lavrentii Beria and her tragic decline, and the deadly political machinations within the Kremlin he witnesses firsthand.