Tetris
If I could see a historical record of how many hours I’ve played Tetris through all the different versions on Game Boy and every ripoff since I’d probably pass out at the lost productivity. There’s something about Tetris. It gets in you; you just want to play one more game, again and again. The story of how this time-waster became an international phenomenon could make for a good movie, but “Tetris,” which premiered Thursday at SXSW, tries to turn that tale of patents and legal rights into another “The Social Network” or even an ’80s spy thriller, and, well, the blocks don’t fit.
Taron Egerton stars as Henk Rogers, who founded Bullet-Proof Software after stumbling into the legacy of Tetris at a gaming convention in his new home country of Japan. He knows instantly what everyone else around him does not. This game is going to be huge. But it hasn’t made its way past Tokyo yet. And he wants it. Told largely in flashbacks from Rogers’ perspective while he’s being interviewed by Soviet officials trying to get their hands on what they think is still their national game (it isn’t), the film jumps around in time with only occasional markers and no real sense of history or even geography.
“Tetris” could have been a simple story about two men fighting over one game. Rogers vs. Robert Stein, played here by Sir Derek Jacobi with an American accent we’re guessing he really enjoyed using. Stein bought (or so he thought) the rights for distribution outside of Japan from Alexey Pajitnov (Nikita Efremov), who invented the game during his day job working for a Soviet computing center. Instead, writer/director Jon S. Baird piles on subplots about love interests for both men (Lily James shows up as Rogers’ future wife), political intrigue with the KGB, and a framing device in which Rogers is detained by Russian authorities in an attempt to find out what he knows about Tetris. All of which might be fine if “Tetris” were more fun or less of a mess.
Instead, it’s too often dull and confusing. A hyperactive opening credits sequence uses 8-bit graphics and Egerton’s narration much too chaotically before settling down once Rogers arrives in Russia (though it can’t entirely shake off the nagging sensation that this would have been better as a short film). By then, he has already bet his family’s financial future on this deal, and Egerton sells Henk’s refusal to take no for an answer even when the KGB is involved. But the longer “Tetris” goes, the less entertaining it gets. The movie doesn’t trust the inherently compelling nature of its story how did this Moscow based computing center employee invent one of the biggest games in history? instead piling on absurdities like a Russian bureaucrat using her position to try to sleep with Pajitnov while also ensuring Rogers’ freedom.
Told largely from his perspective though not really about him, “Tetris” spends little time getting into who Pajitnov was or what motivated him beyond telling us that he was lonely and liked puzzles. Which means we’re left watching a rather uninteresting person going through some fairly predictable motions en route to inevitably creating something great (and yes, I know Tetris is great, this movie just isn’t). There are occasional hints at larger themes here involving free will versus government control or art versus commerce (or even love!). But they never amount to anything beyond idle musings that Baird tosses into his historical blender without any clear idea of how they might fit together.
Like those blocks themselves, “Tetris” lacks shape. It has all the pieces it needs to make a good movie, even just a fun one. But they don’t fit together, and the more time you spend with them, the clearer it becomes that they never will.
Henk Rogers is confronted by more than just a conflict between Communism and Capitalism. In the 80s, Robert Maxwell played here by Roger Allam was a true business villain. He owned the Mirror Group, which published the Daily Mirror among others, and was a fascinating, divisive figure in world business and politics. (He also had a daughter named Ghislaine. Yes, that one.) His son Kevin (Anthony Boyle) tries to get some attention from daddy and the world by profiting from Tetris, which allows them to become the “big business” figures that stand in their way, with Toby Jones’ negotiator Robert Stein in the middle. In Russia, Rogers runs afoul of Russian authorities at every turn, including an imposing figure at Alexei’s company named Nikolai (Oleg Shtefanko) and a classic Russian tough guy named Valentin (Igor Grabuzov), who literally threatens to throw a child out a window at one point, pointing out that everything falls at the same rate. (Like Tetris! Get it?!?)
If it sounds like a lot, it is but also not enough. All this intrigue and negotiation gets “Tetris” to an incredibly repetitive and monotonous place that’s not helped by director Jon S. Baird’s glib tone, one that looks back on the ‘80s with a sort of goofy bemusement that feels disingenuous. The movie bounces back and forth between conference rooms and scary Russian alleys but never finds the right depth of character or deviation in either, instead of enlivening dry material with actual tension it chooses odd condescension as its mode of engagement: “Can you believe these crazy Russians?” This is an odd tone to strike under any circumstances; in 2023 it feels downright offensive.
One of many problems with screenplay for this film is that the non Rogers characters mostly feel like archetypes. There’s the “Good Artistic Russian,” the “Evil Muscle Russian,” the “Whiny Kid Businessman” and his evil dad. Rogers’ wife and family are there for emotional pressure. Jones and Allam are wasted. To be fair, Shtefanko actually beats the clichés most interestingly, finding depth in a Russian cog in the machine who realizes he may be looking at something his country doesn’t want to let the Americans take from him.
The saddest thing about “Tetris” is that it’s easy to see why someone wanted to tell this story. The little guy never wins in Russia, and he usually goes to jail for even thinking he could play, but American business is built on narratives of Davids beating business Goliaths. Merging the two for a story in which an ambitious American had to use the tools of Capitalism to topple Communism sounds like an easy sell, and there’s probably a great documentary to be made on this subject. But breaking it out into a drama or thriller requires a different set of rules, and despite Egerton’s best efforts, the team behind “Tetris” never figured out how to tell this story. It’s so repetitive that it will make you want to pick up your phone while it’s playing on Apple TV. You should play Tetris.
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