Blogorium Review: Exporting Raymond

 After concluding his nine year run on Everybody Loves Raymond, Executive Producer Phil Rosenthal is offered by Sony to oversee the production of a Russian version of the show, titled Everybody Loves Kostya. Rosenthal agrees to fly to Moscow, and takes along a camera crew to document his experiences. The result is the docu-comedy Exporting Raymond, which is a sometimes successful but mostly grating experience.

 Rosenthal (who wrote, produced, and directed Exporting Raymond) narrates most of the film, which focuses on the trials and tribulations of translating a sitcom based on naturalism into a culture that prefers the outrageous in their comedy (the two shows Rosenthal is pointed towards are Russian versions of The Nanny and Married with Children). He clashes with the writers (who don't think the scripts are funny enough), the costume designer (who thinks the clothes are boring), the executives (who don't like his casting suggestions) and the producers and director, who don't seem very interested in his notes or micro-managing. When this isn't happening, Rosenthal wanders around Moscow playing the "fish out of water" stereotype, and is content to spend the first two-thirds of the movie portraying all of Russia as a) oppressive, b) scary, or c) strange.

 It's clear shortly after Rosenthal takes the job that he's trying to accentuate the "comedy" in his documentary, beginning with overplaying the fears of being kidnapped or poisoned (two running gags that go nowhere), and it might be less grating if he didn't mug so much for the camera. There's scarcely a moment early in the film where Rosenthal isn't making a "can you believe this is happening to me?" face or cracking some uncomfortable joke that exists only to get a laugh. If it weren't actually happening, one might surmise that Exporting Raymond was a kind of reverse Borat*.

 Still, there are moments that shine through despite his attempts to mine uncomfortable chuckles out of audiences. A moment where Rosenthal's bodyguard / driver Eldar takes him to his "favorite" museum, a depot of tanks and weapons fortification, which at first appears to exist just to see the producer uncomfortable becomes a moment of revelation when Eldar admits that if he could take it back, he would have pursued conchology instead of entering the military, and that his actual favorite museum is one of biology in Saint Petersburg. When Rosenthal leaves during a hiatus, he returns to find Eldar is heading to the hospital for a series of procedures. Or maybe he's going on vacation. Nobody seems sure, but Rosenthal persists in following this plot thread through to the end of the film, even if the payoff is wholly anticlimactic.

  The negatives are offset a bit by visits from Rosenthal's parents (who are the basis for Ray's parents on the show), both in person and over Skype, as well as the gradual humanization of some of the production team in Moscow. There's an amusing moment where Rosenthal attempts to free his first choice for Kostya from his contract in theatre, until the producer discovers his contract is with the Moscow Art Theatre (the original home of naturalism, Stanislavsky, and Chekov), and he has to convince Boris Klyuyev, the head of the theatre, to let his actor leave to do television. Needless to say it doesn't work out.

 I don't know how fair the portrayal of Moscow as dilapidated and frightening (the "number one" studio filming location is a constant source of jokes from Rosenthal, who suggests "they filmed the first Saw in here," and when the film finally settles down into a less exaggerated tone, a visit to an artist and his instillation pushes Exporting Raymond into a montage of "artsy" camera tricks, animated overlays, and goofy freeze frames. The film even ends with Rosenthal saying "so what did we learn?" after already having explained to us that "people are basically the same" despite repeatedly highlighting cultural differences for 80 minutes.

 Now, it is possible that Exporting Raymond could have been compelling without all of the deliberate attempts to be "funny," and that more actual humor could be found in the situations, but there are so many moments in the film that feel forced, as though I'm meant to think "wow, that's so different than it is here, how funny that they think this" that after a while, the film lost what little charms it had. I hate to pin it all on one person, but since Phil Rosenthal seems to be the singular driving force behind Exporting Raymond, I must conclude that it was his decision to force the comedy into the documentary, either to accentuate what existed or to attempt to create a funny tone throughout. That might work for some audiences, but it didn't for me.

 Postscript: There a two moments during the credits that are genuinely amusing - one happens while Ray Romano is watching the first episode of Everybody Loves Kostya, and the other involves a curious wall decoration in Klyuyev's office.

 * If that sounds unfair, watch how awkward some of the "interview" moments are during the film.