Hipsters

Hipsters is a Russian musical directed by Valery Todorovsky in 2008. It was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2009. Mels, an average young adult living in 1950s Communist Russia, meets a beautiful Hipster who goes by the name of Polly. For pretty obvious reasons, he gets drawn into her world and soon becomes a hipster himself.


 * An Aesop: It's not important what the style is. What matters is that the style exists.
 * Color Coded for Your Convenience: Word of God states that the trope was deliberately exaggerated, with the hipsters wearing outrageously colorful clothing, and the "squares" clad in dull grey apparel.
 * Femme Fatale: Polly starts off as one.
 * The Fifties: A rather balanced view of the Fifties in Soviet Russia, as a time of both post-war depression, political pressure and paranoia - and a longing for a bright abd flashy life.
 * Gainax Ending: The movie ends with a parade of different subcultures on the Red Square.
 * Mood Whiplash: The film, sometimes jarringly, swings from a light-hearted musical to serious period drama.
 * Nerd Glasses: Worn by Bob (the chubby guy).
 * It Got Worse: Subverted, surprisingly. Late in the movie, many bad things happen, but most of the time the characters manage to shrug it off and continue having fun, until the final scenes.
 * Jerkass: Polly, Fred and their friends act downright mean towards Mel at first, but become much nicer when he wins the crowd.
 * Large Ham: Sergey Garmash as Mel's father acts in its usual over-the-top style, and steals quite a few scenes.
 * Naive Newcomer: Mel among the hipsters. Naturally, he goes through a lot of hazing.
 * One-Scene Wonder: Oleg Yankovskiy as Fred's father gives the movie's most lauded performance, despite having about 5 minutes of screen time.
 * Period Piece
 * Shell-Shocked Veteran: Subverted. Mel's father is a veteran of the Great Patriotic War who definitely went through a lot, but keeps his cheerful demeanor.
 * Shout-Out
 * Fred giving Mel the Kama Sutra could well be a shout out to American Pie, where the protagonist is also given a sex text book by a more experienced friend.
 * Polly is a definitely a shout out to the Soviet movie Circus (1936).
 * What Do You Mean It's Not Political?: Mel's father reading a Soviet newspaper: "Look! A crisis in the U.S. economy!"
 * Win the Crowd: In-Universe, Mel has to do it to win the "hipsters'" favour.