Why Russ­ian Doll is more than just anoth­er Ground­hog Day

Inject­ing new life into a sto­ry­telling device that is strong­ly asso­ci­at­ed with one spe­cif­ic film is not the eas­i­est of cre­ative tasks. Ground­hog Day did not invent the time loop nar­ra­tive, but Bill Murray’s per­for­mance as the cur­mud­geon­ly weath­er­man forced to relive the same day cer­tain­ly set the standard.

Harold Ramis’ 1993 com­e­dy is now both an Amer­i­can tra­di­tion and a short­hand for a recur­ring peri­od of time. Over the course of eight episodes, Net­flix dram­e­dy Russ­ian Doll takes on the do-over con­cept to explore trau­ma, men­tal health and oth­er exis­ten­tial ques­tions that have plagued human­i­ty since time began. The result is a hilar­i­ous, heart­break­ing and insight­ful jour­ney stretch­ing far beyond the reset gimmick.

Natasha Lyonne stars as Nadia Vul­vokov, a sar­don­ic video game design­er who is stuck cel­e­brat­ing her 36^th birth­day over and over again. She is hap­py to go it alone, bask­ing in the glo­ry of a no bull­shit phi­los­o­phy, but the wall around her heart can only with­stand so much. Meth­ods for deal­ing with trau­mat­ic events vary from con­fronting it head on to ignor­ing the pain. Nadia resorts to the lat­ter, using wise­cracks, chain-smok­ing and resist­ing long-term rela­tion­ships as a form of pro­tec­tion. Ulti­mate­ly this is a short-term fix that is put to the test when her death wish becomes a reality.

Each reset reveals a buried aspect of Nadia’s life or psy­che; a doll with­in a doll with­in a doll. The Russ­ian aspect of the title ref­er­ences Nadia’s her­itage, includ­ing the coin she wears around her neck, but Russ­ian Nest­ing Dolls – or Matryosh­ka – also rep­re­sent the link between body, soul, mind, heart and spir­it. Some­thing in Nadia has been frag­ment­ed since child­hood, now it is time to put her back togeth­er again. Con­nec­tions are hard to forge and main­tain, but they are hard­er to break when the uni­verse is mak­ing a larg­er point.

It takes the love of a good woman to add val­ue to Phil Con­nors’ life in Ground­hog Day; it is only when he bet­ters him­self and falls for Rita (Andie Mac­Dow­ell) that he escapes the time loop. Russ­ian Doll is less sim­plis­tic in its approach, roman­tic inti­ma­cy is not the salve to this par­tic­u­lar wound. This is not pur­ga­to­ry nor is it pun­ish­ment for bad behaviour.

TV loves a moral­is­tic tale explor­ing ​“good peo­ple doing bad things” (see many oth­er Net­flix Orig­i­nals, includ­ing Blood­line), but Nadia does not fit into this box. She is self­ish and has the capac­i­ty for kind­ness, the show rejects sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty while embrac­ing human­i­ty. The alle­go­ry isn’t a moral one, or rather the ques­tions at the heart of Russ­ian Doll are focused on a dif­fer­ent kind of for­give­ness. Redemp­tion isn’t easy, but most peo­ple don’t get a sec­ond, third or even fourth chance.

What begins as a typ­i­cal repeat­ing the same day adven­ture twists into some­thing far more inter­est­ing as the past bub­bles to the sur­face. Breakups and birth­days are cen­tral to the action – one hap­pens on a year­ly basis, the oth­er (hope­ful­ly) less fre­quent­ly, how­ev­er, both can send some­one spi­ralling. Enter­ing a new decade in your life is often a time for reflec­tion, but any age has the capac­i­ty to cause an emo­tion­al gut-punch. Every­thing is rel­a­tive to your own expe­ri­ence, but find­ing com­mon ground with anoth­er per­son can be a life­saver. Nadia is the pro­tag­o­nist of this show and her own sto­ry, but this is not a sin­gle-play­er game.

The time loop nar­ra­tive is appeal­ing because it broad­ens the scope of what a char­ac­ter can expe­ri­ence all while offer­ing a get out of jail free card with every reset. This for­mat can also be deriv­a­tive and lazy, but thank­ful­ly Russ­ian Doll is nei­ther of these things. Instead, co-cre­ators Lyonne, Amy Poehler and Leslye Head­land have tak­en a famil­iar for­mu­la and flipped on its head.

With just three direc­tors there is also a strong visu­al through­line. And unlike a lot of Net­flix Orig­i­nals, it man­ages to avoid the mid-sea­son bloat, in which episodes often come across as list­less. In fact, it flows so well that when the eight episodes are over you may well find your­self reach­ing for the remote to watch again. Not every­one will want to escape this time loop.