Which Russia would YOU choose?

Chernovik (Rough Draft) : a colourful blockbuster based on the modish premise of alternate histories.

`Which world would you choose? ` was the tag-line which appeared on the promotional posters in the metro about a month before this film’s release on 27^th May this year. Best known for his dark fantasies Night Watch and Day Watch, (2004 and 2006 respectively) the fifty year old former doctor Sergey Lukyanenko has now seen his untranslated novel – Chernovik – from 13 years back also adapted for the screen.

This parallel worlds yarn has a 12+ certificate this time, but otherwise seems to be aiming at the same young adult audience.

Kirill, an ordinary young Muscovite (Nikita Volkov) who works for a computer games company, receives the shock of his life when he discovers one day that his whole identity has been erased from his known reality. A fellow gaming geek (Yevgeny Tkachuk) seems to be the only one to recognise him. Then, however a mysterious woman called Renata Ivanova welcomes him into a new role. He is now to be the curator of a way station straddling alternate variations of Moscow. His customers enter the water tower in which he resides and, should they show the right documents and pay, can exit out of another door straight in to a whole new version of reality. We glimpse a sun-soaked Moscow complete with palm trees along the river, a Moscow with steam punk airships crossing the skies, a variant of unreformed Stalinism, a sleek futuristic Chinese run Moscow, and so on.

Within all this kaleidoscopic adventure we are given a conventional romantic sub-plot as Kirrill pursues the same woman in different guises throughout switching between worlds. However, his friendship with the loyal and goofy coloured-shade- wearing fellow gamer packs much more impact.

The director Sergey Mokritsky made his name with the much more earthy Dyen Uchitelya (Teacher’s Day) (2012) but here he delivers the kind of glittery grandeur you would expect from a Lukyanenko product. It all gets very J.K. Rowling-meets-Bulgakov:  in particular when there is a climatic showdown between the ruling `functionals`.

Apart from the giant killer matrioshka dolls – which are straight out of the sillier end of Doctor Who – the other most memorable thing in this flashy movie is that it graces the stately Lithuanian actress Severija Janusauskaite (last seen in a support role in satisfying psychological thriller Selfie) with a rather more fitting part as a superhuman supervisor.

Trailer here