Take “Laguna Beach” and douse it in vodka. Fill a shot glass full of any of “The Real Housewives” franchise and na zdorovje, “Russian Dolls.” Brighton Beach, Brooklyn is “an immigrant experience,” a woman says in a voice over as gentle shots of the ocean and the boardwalk, people walking in fur coats and stilettos cycle through. Then a flash of, “God can’t be everywhere, so he created mothers” – Russian proverb on the screen. Irony? Too early to tell.
Marina opens the series, which consists of 12 half-hour episodes. She’s a 34-year-old busty blonde with two kids, Zev and Mina, and a reserved husband, Michael. Together, they own the local supperclub, Rasputin, and waste no time speaking of their riches, i.e. a home dripping in gold, mirrors and pride. The couple worked hard for their success, or so Marina says.
In a red-walled room Marina sits at a table with Sveta and Renata, both 47. Food is overflowing on the table, but it’s the conversation that’s at the center of the meal. Eva, Marina’s mother-in-law, is entering a grandma pageant, a show-and-tell type talent program at the local banquet hall. Marina is outraged and already embarrassed despite the fact that she has no idea what Eva is planning. “She’s nobody to me,” Marina says, ending the scene. (Although all three of these women have heavy accents, they choose English, not Russian.)
Blonde-haired, blue-eyed Diana is 23 and dating a Spaniard, Paul. Although he’s got a Maserati, which she boasts on camera, he’s not Russian. (We smell a problem.) Her goal is marriage and kids – by age 25. She came to America when she was three “for a better life.”
Proving a quick fixture in Brighton Beach, the banya, or Russian bathhouse, is where the decades collide. It’s also where Diana meets Anastasia, her BFF, who she also shares an apartment with. Anastasia is 26 and a dark-haired version of Diana. There’s also Anna, a slim 22-year-old who, by the look of things, is also a man-eater.
A rotund bespectacled Albert and a bald Eddie, both 26, round out the crew. In canary yellow robes, they sit by the pool, beers on the table, while the mothers watch from the deck above.
Albert and Eddie gripe to the camera about how Russian women love to flirt and value the free dinner more than what these men have to truly offer, themselves.
In a “Jersey Shore” moment, the show inserts a quick cut of “Arbuz” the local yogurt shop where Diana and Anastasia return to the topic of kids, marriage and Paul.
At Marina’s two-storey home, Eva spreads out here various outfits, from a bright red dress to a belly dancing costume. Marina talks over Eva about how embarrassing it all is. Eva barely mumbles out that she was an engineer in Russia and never had a chance to “be an artist.”
Anna, Diana’s mother, a short, round woman with blonde hair and sunglasses perched on her head pay the girls a visit in their apartment to teach Diana how to make borscht, a beet soup. Diana talks about Paul, and her mother repeats over and over, “don’t hurt my family,” which is Russian for ditch the boyfriend.
At the grandma contest, Marina continues her rant about how this is embarrassing her family. Michael stays tight lipped and Eva just looks sad. In a particularly telling moment, Marina surveys the crowd in the banquet hall and talks about how these people immigrated to America but they aren’t really in America. Zev and Mina dance around and hold a sign to support their grandma, whose performance is actually quite good. But Marina can’t stand it after five hours and takes the family home.
Eva, it turns out, won the best talent award, and no one was there to celebrate with her. Sad. Very sad. In the only two seconds of Russian spoken in the show, some other elderly women congratulate Eva in passing.
Diana and Paul meet for sushi, which he doesn’t like, but “Russian guys like sushi.” Diana dumps Paul saying her “parents came to America for a reason.” But Paul doesn’t get it. Diana asks for the check and the food to be wrapped up “individually.”
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