8/12 ForReel Score | 3.5/5 Stars

Alexie Navalny enjoys making TikToks just as much as he enjoys watching them. The platform’s short, but widely popular, videos seem to hold power over Russia’s infamous opposition leader. And why shouldn’t they? Alexie Navalny has one of the most stressful - and seemingly impossible - jobs in the world: to create a coalition strong enough to defeat the Kremlin. There are few better tools for reaching a mass audience of young folks than quick, catchy videos; ones that endlessly loop, yet never stray from the path the creator has set them on. To Navalny, they must feel like gold.

Naturally, that makes Daniel Roher’s Sundance-winning documentary, Navalny, something closer to diamonds. For just like TikToks, Navalny offers an expanded - but carefully cropped - portrait of Alexie Navalny and the Kremlin’s unsuccessful attempt to have him assassinated.

From the outset of Navalny, we are presented with four facts. The first: Alexie Navalny adamantly opposes the Russian government, for it is corrupt and evil. Further, the Russian government attempted to have Navalny killed for his opposition. But - thirdly - they failed, and he lived. The fourth fact, and where the movie begins and ends, is that Alexie Navalny has returned to Russia to continue his campaign of opposition. Navalny, in its 98 minutes of runtime, never wanders from these four facts.

Roher presents Navalny as a champion of human rights, a caring father, and the face of Russia’s future. These are presented as facts by the filmmaker - just as all opinions doused in bias do. (That’s not to say that they aren’t necessarily true. Though, most men look like saints next to Satan.) From the outset of the documentary, there is no speculation about Alexie Navalny’s mysterious collapse on a flight in August of 2020. We are told, over and over and over, that the titular man was poisoned by the Russian government. Navalny, a movie centered around conspiracy, is notably devoid of speculation.

That doesn’t mean that it is without its surprises, though. Navalny is an excellently constructed documentary that carefully paces itself through the four facts it is so intent on presenting. And its most jaw dropping scene - the one that will be played at the next Academy Awards, no doubt - is a revelatory phone call that transcends even the greatest scriptwriting Hollywood has to offer. It’s equal parts dumbfounding as it is disturbing. However, while the phone call scene may be the best stunt on the Navalny rollercoaster, it may be its only unforeseen turn, as well.

Even with that knock-out highlight at the center of the film, Navalny still has its predescribed story to tell. Despite the film’s name, Navalny is not a biography of Alexie Navalny. It’s not an unbiased examination of his politics, his social struggles, or the political landscape of Russia. And it’s certainly not a revelation of anything that isn’t already well documented online. It is, quite frankly, some much deserved anti-Kremlin messaging. And, as such, it is certainly well made.

But it isn’t a full picture, a fact that needled me as I left the film. Navalny, for better or for worse, is a 98 minute TikTok - set, shot, and stitched to sell precisely one story to as many people as possible. It’s good filmmaking…and better marketing.

MOVIE REVIEW: ‘Navalny’ Never Strays From Its Selling Point