Just perfect...

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

It is such a heart warming filmed to be nice four-segment TV-series that for a lot of people it can be border-line tear-jerking. Unbelievable all-star-cast for early 70s USSR - makes this worth watching. Actually - the cool part of this TV mini-series - is that it shows - how being mendacious in order to be polite and well-behaved - can severely complicate lives of many really cool and good-hearted people. The guy who is planning to become a great historian finds himself (through being mutually overly secretive with his roller-coaster-ride swiftly head-over-hills fiancée) teaching Adult Ed - in a school for adults run by huge oil refinery. Tricky part is - that every student is an adult - with strong opinions, personal life etc. As the series unfold - it gets more and more complicated. But every scene is full of very kind humor. That's a good material to keep in personal video collection for when one feels down (provided it has English subtitles or one is fluent in Russian. LOL!). It is a reliable cheer-up material.