Tetris, from Apple TV+, is the kind of movie we need right now
That may seem a bold statement, but read on to learn why I really do think that Tetris is the perfect film for the world in 2023.
I’m 41, so a movie that tells the fascinating story of how the video game Tetris was brought to the world from behind the Iron Curtain hits me right in the nostalgia. I still remember that Christmas morning in 1990 or ’91 when I unwrapped my Game Boy, complete with the Tetris pack-in cartridge. We had it for the Nintendo Entertainment System as well, and I played it on PCs too. For younger viewers it might be hard to understand just what a monster game Tetris was. And even at that young age I always found it both noteworthy and mysterious that it was developed in the Soviet Union but somehow found its way to the West.
I loved this film, but if I have any negative criticism of it, it’s that you have to pay very close attention to the film because a lot of it involves the minutia of contract details and disputes. Tetris’s protagonist is Henk Rogers (Taron Egerton) a struggling video games publisher who is introduced to Tetris and sets off on a quest to secure the rights to distribute it worldwide, particularly the handheld rights since Rogers knows that Nintendo is soon to bring the Game Boy to market. This leads him to direct negotiations in Moscow with the Soviet bureaucracy that controls the rights to Tetris and to a friendship with Alexey Pajitnov (Nikita Efremov) the programmer who created Tetris. Rogers’s adversaries are a shady middleman, a greedy (and desperate) corporation, and a corrupt Soviet official.
The movie is very well cast. Egerton is a compelling figure: he’s sharp enough to recognize what he’s got on his hands, but he’s also a family man who’s bet his family’s entire livelihood on landing the deal. He’s also depicted as having quite a bit of boldness by tenaciously refusing to walk away from the negotiating table despite very real threats from the KGB and other members of the Soviet government. Several of the Russian characters are played by actors who were actually born in the USSR before its fall, which lends an authenticity to their portrayals.
It’s not a movie that simplistically shows the Westerners as the good guys and the Russians as bad guys. The Soviet Union is rightly shown to be the evil, corrupt state that it was, but individual Russians are portrayed with the dignity that they deserve. One of the great scenes shows Henk and Alexey sharing a meal in the latter’s home. After an uneasy period of breaking the ice they bond over their shared love of computer programming. We also see one of the darker sides of living in Soviet Russia: the reality that at any moment a knock could come at your door which would end your life or your livelihood. Likewise some of the Westerners vying to win the rights to Tetris are portrayed as greedy, cheats, and liars. Still, the film is ultimately a loving tribute to the fruitfulness of international business arrangements to break down political barriers.
And that’s why it’s such a timely movie. Once again, we find ourselves in something of a new Cold War and the governments of the West and the East are more at odds than at any time since the fall of Soviet Communism. While we wish that the war in Ukraine had not happened and we eagerly hope for a swift and peaceful resolution there, we must always remember that the American people and the Russian people are not enemies, and that great good can come when individual citizens of nations whose governments are at odds forge bonds of commerce and friendship. We see a scene in the film when young Russian dissidents are dancing to Western music, and I myself can testify to how much the world benefitted from Tetris making its way out of the USSR to become a worldwide phenomenon. That’s why I think one of the greatest tragedies of the current geopolitical situation is that so many Western companies have pulled out of Russia. We may not approve of the actions of the Russian government, but it’s good to have a movie like Tetris remind us of how much richly we’re all blessed when we can trade and cooperate freely.