Worth: $14.00
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Cast:
Stefan Denolyubov, Margita Gosheva
Intro:
At times, Glory will slap you with gallows humour that will make you feel terrible for laughing.
When author and politician Clare Boothe Luce stated that ‘No good deed goes unpunished’, she could well have been talking about all that which befalls Tsanko Petrov (Stefan Denolyubov), the hapless linesman/pawn of Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov’s second feature. Stumbling across millions in cash whilst on duty, his honest act of alerting the authorities to the incident provides an opportunity for unscrupulous PR guru Julia (Margita Gosheva) to bury bad news on behalf of the Department of Transport.
The film’s naturalistic style adds to its increasingly bleak outlook. This is a world where everyone is out to help themselves; the truly good people are few and far between. On paper, this sounds like a morbidly serious kitchen sink drama, but Glory is much more than that. When Tsanko turns up for a press conference, Julia and her mob, feeling his crumpled suit is a little humble, strip him of his trousers and argue about who will be the one to lend him theirs. At times, Glory will slap you with gallows humour that will make you feel terrible for laughing.
Similar to Armando Iannucci’s In the Loop, albeit in a much darker hue, Glory revels in politics, uncomfortable laughs and unpleasant characters. Laughing at Tsanko’s debilitating stutter and losing a prized watch of his, it would be easy to paint Julia as a one note villain. However, outside of belittling others with one liners, Julia is softened with scenes of humanity as she and her husband undergo IVF. Tsanko, meanwhile, appears to be weighed down by his naivety and willingness to trust people. As Tsanko pursues his cast aside timepiece, you’ll be watching his quest through your fingers. In some ways, Glory seems to admonish his behaviour as much as it does Julia’s; the film’s co-directors pointing fingers at the abusers and those allowing themselves to be abused.
