I found this movie hilarious. Judy Davis plays a woman committed to bringing the workers' revolution to Australia, circa 1951. Her letters to Stalin, written in poor Russian, and her good looks get her invited to the Party congress. Stalin dies after screwing her and later that same evening she has sex with an Australian double-agent (Sam Neill, looking very much like a James Mason sophisticated villain al North By Northwest) she first met in Australia where he broke into her house and warned her that the Australian government knew of her activities, now posing as a KGB agent:
"Do the Russians know?"
"Of course."
"Do the Australians know?"
"Nobody cares what the Australians think."
She returns to Australia disillusioned with the revolution and pregnant. She convinces Zachary Welch, the poor schlub who joined the party because he loved her, to marry her. Sam Neill thinks he fathered her son and buddies up to Zachary. Davis raises her son to continue the revolution but he shows a distressing interest in the police and jails; eventually he marries a policewoman (Rachel Griffiths).
It sounds much less promising than it turns out. Davis plays a cartoon zealot, Neill a cartoon cynical spy. I think the director flubs the dramatic tension aspect of the movie but the comedy, both sly and broad (Stalin singing "I Get a Kick Out of You" with Beria, Malenkov, and Khrushchev, the whom Stalin calls "Three Stooges" dancing chorus), made it enjoyable for me.
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