The 2022 Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or competition begins with Kirill Serebrennikov‘s Tchaikovsky’s Wife — his fourth consecutive feature to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival which makes it back to back years with Petrov’s Flu premiering in 2021. The Student (2016) was an Un Certain Regard selection and 2018’s Leto was his first time in competition.

Tchaikovsky’s Wife essentially tells the story of Antonina Miliukova’s not too healthy union with the great Pyotr Tchaikovsky (Odin Lund Biron). It’s a heightened drama and historical hypothesis that sees Miliukova (a truly committed performance by actress Alyona Mikhailova) spiral out of control offering self-adulation and exaggeratedly late accountability.…...