A Rough Draft


A Rough Draft is a 2018 Russian fantasy film directed by Sergey Mokritskiy, based on the 2005 novel of the same name by Sergei Lukyanenko and starring Nikita Volkov, Yulia Peresild and Yevgeny Tsyganov. It was released in Russia on May 25, 2018.

Plot

A young resident of Moscow, Kirill is a talented designer of computer games. One day, he is completely erased from the memory of everyone he knew and loved. Kirill learns that he is chosen for an important and mysterious mission. His purpose is to become a customs officer between parallel worlds, of which there are dozens in the universe.
Kirill learns to open the portals to a variety of parallel worlds which represent alternative versions of Moscow: a steampunk Imperial Russia, a post-apocalyptic tropic resort world, a dystopian Gulag world, and a highly advanced utopian world. Over time, Kirill learns that our Earth is a rough draft, a setting for social experiments secretly staged by the government of the utopian world, in order to avoid our mistakes. Learning this, Kirill rebels against his supervisors.

Cast

Although the film was one of the most anticipated Russian releases of 2018, it received mixed to negative reviews of professional critics, receiving 32% on KinoPoisk. The majority of criticism was focused on CGI, acting and an incomprehensible storyline. Critics also panned the film for its changes from the novel. Observer of Kommersant Mikhail Trofimenkov in his review notes that by multiplying the fantasy worlds above the necessary number, the authors doomed the film to madness of entropy. Equally helpless, in the opinion of the author, is the actor's work. Critic Alexey Lytovchenko wrote that in some places it is impossible to differentiate the characters and understand their motives.
А Rough Draft underperformed in the box office.