My review was written in March 1986 after watching the movie on Vestron video cassette.
"Very Close Quarters" is a hopelessly unfunny sex comedy filmed in 1983 under the title "The Communal Flat". With no conceivable audience in mind, picture has ended up as a direct to home video release by default.
Resembling an off-Broadway play on film rather than a feature, episodic pic is unconvincingly set in a communal flat in Moscow, with 31 inhabitants sharing one kitchen and one toilet. Thi hoary format gives rise to various slapstick gags and lack of privacy mishaps that seem better suited to a youthful "Porky's" comedy than an ethnic piece.
In place of a developing storyline, writer-director Vladimir Rif substitutes vignettes which are barely knitted together. Main thrust has unwed mother Galina (Shelley Winters) trying to get her pretty daughter Vera (Lee Taylor Allen) married to prosperous boss Kiril (Paul Sorvino in a tiresome drunk routine). Young hero Vadik (Fredrick Allen) has a crush on Vera, while Vera pretends to be having a lesbian relationship with artist neighbor Luda (Ellen Barber), just to bug the noisy neighbors.
Corny dialog is mainly vulgar, American vernacular and film never develops any Russian atmosphere (except for Theodore Bikel, the cast relies on neutral American accents). The wafer-thin characteris are generally overacted, with declamatory theatrical thesping. Unlike Jean-Charles Tacchella's successful recent apartment house comedy-drama "Staircase C", Rif has not solved the problem of the claustrophobic premise -all scenes except a final tracking shot take place inside the crowded place.
