The Irony of Fate 2 is a 2007 film from Russia directed by Timur Bekmambetov.
It is a sequel to the beloved 1976 film The Irony of Fate. It seems that Zhenya and Nadya, who seemingly had come together in the first film after a whirlwind 24-hour romance over the New Year's holiday, did not wind up with each other after all. In fact, they both went back to their respective fiancees, Galya and Ippolit.
Zhenya is now a lonely divorcee. His old friend Pavlik (who also appeared in the first movie) is worried about him, so Pavlik enlists Zhenya's son Kostya (Konstantin Khabensky) in a particularly wacky scheme. It's New Year's again, so Kostya will show up at Nadya's old apartment in St. Petersburg (not Leningrad anymore!), pretending to be drunk, just as Zhenya came to the apartment drunk thirty years ago after a series of wacky events. This will, hopefully, reunite Zhenya and his Old Flame Nadya.
Just how Kostya appearing at Nadya's door pretending to be intoxicated is supposed to reunite the old lovers is not explained. In any case, Kostya gets a surprise when the door to the St. Petersburg apartment opens and he is met not by Nadya, but by her lovely daughter, also named Nadya, child of Nadya and Ippolit. And it turns out that Nadya 2.0 has her own Disposable Fiancée in the person of Irakily, an arrogant cell phone company manager. Just like in the first film, a series of crazy events happen as the two young people are drawn together. And sure enough, Zhenya and the first Nadya do end up meeting again.
Tropes:
- Can't Hold His Liquor: Not only is Kostya not drunk, he's The Teetotaler, because he's alcohol intolerant and a single drink will mess him up. Eventually he's forced to down a shot of vodka, and sure enough, it knocks him on his butt.
- Creator Cameo: Or maybe Mythology Gag. But that's Eldar Ryazanov, again, as the guy on the plane next to a drunk Kostya.
- Cutting the Electronic Leash: Irakliy is nagged by phone calls throughout the entire film. In the end, he gives it to a random kid as a New Year gift.
- Dating What Daddy Hates: Ippolit is not fond of Irakli who is his daughter's fiance despite (or perhaps because) they are much alike when it comes to their relationships with their respective partners.
- December–December Romance: Zhenya and Nadya renew their romance after 30 years apart.
- Deus ex Machina: Kostya would have flown back to Moscow, and been out of Nadya 2.0's life forever, but bad weather cancels the flight.
- Discreet Drink Disposal: The officer interrogating Kostya at the police station seizes upon the New Year's moment to start downing shots. Kostya pours his into a potted plant.
- Disposable Fiancée: Just like in the original, the New Year's craziness ends with Nadya 2.0 dumping her stodgy fiance and getting together with the exciting new man she just met.
- Extremely Short Timespan: Like the original, it takes place over about 24 hours on New Year's Eve and Day.
- Generation Xerox: Kostya and Nadya 2.0 have repeated much of their parents' lives—Kostya is also a doctor, Nadya 2.0 is also a single woman (living in her mother's old apartment) with a fiance she has mixed feelings about. Irakly for his part takes Nadya 2.0 for granted much as Ippolit did with his Nadya.
- Love Makes You Crazy: As he is escorting a drunken Kostya to the airport, Irakly, mystified, asks the taxi driver why Nadya picked Kostya over him. She in turn tells him that love is irrational, noting how children don't love for logical reasons, but just because.
- The Matchmaker: This is the main difference between the first and second films. In the sequel, Kostya's arrival at the apartment is not "the irony of fate" as it was with his father, and Kostya is only pretending to be drunk. It's all a scheme cooked up by Kostya and his father's friend Pavlik to reunite Zhenya, now a lonely divorcee, with his old flame Nadya. But fate still takes a hand and complicates events when Kostya makes it to the apartment and finds not Nadya, but her daughter Nadya 2.0.
- Maybe Ever After: For both Zhenya and Nadya, reunited after 30 years, and for Kostya and Nadya 2.0, after he wakes up and finds himself still in her apartment. Discussed by Zhenya and Nadya, on the train back to Moscow, as they wonder about the fate of their kids, in the last lines of the movie.Zhenya: You know, I think they'll make it.
Nadya: We'll see. - New Year Has Come: Naturally Kostya couldn't go see Nadya on any random day. No, he has to go on New Year's Eve, that being the biggest holiday in Russia and the night that Zhenya and Nadya met 30 years before.
- No Doubt the Years Have Changed Me: "Have I changed a lot?", asks Nadya after seeing Zhenya for the first time in 30 years. He says she's just the same.
- One Crazy Night: Just like the first movie, a series of crazy events take place over Dec. 31-Jan. 1, as Kostya and Nadya 2.0 wind up in a whirlwind romance of their own.
- Product Placement: The other marker of time passing, besides all the fancy effects, is all the product placement in capitalist 2007 Russia. Nadya 2.0 has Nestle candies at her New Year's table, and Irakly drives a Toyota.
- Race for Your Love: Nadya races to the train station to catch Zhenya before his train departs for Moscow.
- Right Behind Me: Ippolit walks in on the neighbor explaining to Evgeny how Nadya settled for him.Neighbor: She waited and waited for you and you never came back, so she married that guy, what's his name...Ippolit: Ippolit, that's my name!
- Romantic Runner-Up: The sequel makes Ippolit's case a Zigzagged Trope: he did marry Nadya, only for them to get divorced because he was too overbearing and controlling. Besides, she only fell back on marrying him after she got tired of waiting for Zhenya and still carries a torch for the latter 30 years later.
- Same Language Dub: Once again, all of Barbara Brylska's dialogue as Nadya was dubbed, Brylska being Polish.
- Santa Claus: Or Grandfather Frost (Ded Moroz
), the Russian equivalent thereof, who hands out presents on New Year's. Kostya borrows a drunken Grandfather Frost's costume to sneak back into Nadya's apartment, and she winds up dressing as Grandfather Frost's daughter, the Snow Maiden. - Sequel Escalation: The original was a 1976 TV movie made in the Soviet Union, so, pretty low-budget. The sequel is a 2007 theatrical release in high definition, with fancy graphics, freeze-frame shots, and CGI effects.
- Spin-Offspring: Takes place 30 years after the original with the children of the original protagonists as the leads.
- Vodka Drunkenski: Cops, on duty, toasting the New Year with vodka shots.
- Zany Scheme: So...just how was Kostya's trip to St. Petersburg supposed to get his father back with his old girlfriend? In the end it actually works, of course.
