In the whirlwind world of cinema, few projects emerge with the sheer, unadulterated audacity of "The Idiot(s)." This cinematic exploration, loosely inspired by the tumultuous personal life of literary titan Fyodor Dostoevsky during the period he penned his seminal novel "The Idiot," is not a documentary in the traditional sense. Instead, it plunges into the chaotic heart of a passionate, albeit unconventional, love affair between Dostoevsky, portrayed by Johnny Flynn, and his muse and eventual wife, Anna, brought to life by Aimee Lou Wood. Directed by the filmmaking partnership of Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert, themselves former life partners, the film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival on Friday night, signaling its arrival on the international festival circuit before its subsequent showing at the Toronto International Film Festival. "The Idiot(s)" eschews strict historical accuracy for a freewheeling, oddly insightful, and surprisingly sweet portrait of creative fervor and human connection.
Crafting Chaos: The Genesis of "The Idiot(s)"
The film’s distinctive, idiosyncratic nature is a direct reflection of its Polish filmmakers’ artistic sensibilities. Johnny Flynn, who portrays Dostoevsky, recounts his initial connection with Szumowska years prior for a different project. "I’d met Małgorzata for another film years ago and thought she was incredible and I was really sad that that one didn’t work out," Flynn explained. His admiration for Wood’s work also played a significant role. "Then I’d been a huge fan of Aimee’s for a long time and we have many mutual friends and everyone just kept saying, ‘You guys are going to love each other.’ Sometimes you see the top line of who’s involved and you’re like, ‘I think I really want to do this.’ It was a huge leap of faith in lots of ways."
This leap of faith led to a creative process that was anything but conventional. Much of the film’s magic, according to Flynn, stemmed from extensive improvisation. "We ended up doing a lot that wasn’t even on the page, a lot of improvisation. And I mean, it was absolutely nuts, I have to say. Absolutely crazy. But brilliant. The best time I’ve ever had on a film. It was really, really special." Flynn’s personal connection to Dostoevsky’s work, having been profoundly impacted by "Crime and Punishment" in his twenties, further fueled his enthusiasm. "I was like, ‘Who the fuck comes up with that?’ So this very bonkers script about this couple who were the engine of this incredible, imaginative storytelling; I just thought it was brilliant. And meeting Aimee was the best thing that ever happened to me."
Aimee Lou Wood’s introduction to the project was equally unconventional. "I met Małgo on Zoom and she told me that she had the perfect part for me," Wood shared. "We spoke about the film for about five minutes and then for two hours or something we just spoke about astrology, our whole life stories, everything. We just went completely off. It was not a conventional kind of meeting. And we just loved each other so much." This immediate rapport between Wood and Szumowska set the tone for a production that embraced spontaneity. "The movie was always changing and shifting, including when we were filming it. There was a lot of off-the-cuff stuff."
Embracing the Unpredictable: A Journey of Surrender
The production of "The Idiot(s)" was characterized by a willingness to deviate from established plans, a trait that both actors found exhilarating and, at times, daunting. Initially, the characters were slated to speak with Slavic Russian accents, a decision that underwent a dramatic last-minute revision. "For a long time, Aimee and I were attached to it and the characters were going to speak with Slavic Russian accents," Flynn elaborated. "It was written in that way; then before we went out to shoot and just before we turned up for rehearsals, Małgo and Michał got in touch to say that they didn’t want to do the Russian accent thing anymore. They’d seen another film where somebody was doing that and they thought it was ‘shit.’"
This abrupt change presented Flynn with a significant creative challenge. "And I panicked. I freaked out because I was like, ‘Oh, you’ve just taken away my whole performance,’ because, in my head, Dostoevsky doesn’t sound like me." In a moment of inspired, albeit eccentric, inspiration, Flynn considered a Welsh accent for Dostoevsky. "For the whole week, I had this midnight idea before we turned up for the first day where I’d play him as Welsh. I don’t know where I got that from, but it was a bloody stupid idea." While Szumowska and Englert entertained the notion, it was clear that a different approach was needed.
The pivotal shift in perspective came with an embrace of surrender. "At the end of the week, I was like, ‘Fuck it, I just need to embrace this and go on this journey and surrender.’" Flynn recounted a serendipitous moment on the first day of filming. "I got in the car with Aimee on the first day of filming and she’s like, ‘Do you want to pull a tarot card?’ And she pulled the high priestess and I pulled the fool. The fool is just pure surrender – go where the road takes you and play and be goofy along the way and throw everything to the wind – and that’s what I needed to get out of myself. I just went with that. We both did."
Wood echoed this sentiment, describing the on-set experience as electric. "There are moments in the film where I’m watching it and I go, I’ll be laughing because I’m thinking that was the day that we almost could not get through anything because we were deliriously laughing," she said. "In the script, something that looks quite pedestrian and functional becomes this very kind of gnarly, strange, charged moment. It was very electric because we did not know what was going to happen next, and it was that surrender." Wood further commented on the philosophical underpinnings of this approach: "It was nuts because it was also how I think it should be more. I think it’s how work should feel more often: We’re going with the flow. The vibe between me and Johnny influenced the vibe of the film."
This philosophy of surrender extended to the filmmakers’ willingness to incorporate unexpected, off-the-cuff moments. "There’d be days where they would say, ‘Oh, we’ve got a good idea. Today you’re going to be shitting on your landlady’s doorstep,’" Flynn recalled. "I was like, ‘That’s not in the script.’ It required a certain amount of bravery, but once you just said, ‘We will do whatever you say and we will trust you and we’ll all be in this together,’ then amazing things happened. It was kind of magic. We were in no resistance to what they suggested."
Dostoevsky’s Legacy: A Mirror to Creative Chaos
The choice to center the film on Fyodor Dostoevsky and Anna, particularly during the period of his literary output, offered a rich thematic landscape for exploring the intersection of personal turmoil and artistic creation. Flynn observed a natural resonance between the historical figures and the film’s approach. "There was a sense of these people as chaotic and messy and passionate, and that is what makes them brilliant," he stated. The film situates Dostoevsky and Anna in Germany, on what appears to be a honeymoon, but which is revealed to be a period of financial distress and entrapment. "In Germany, they’ve gone on this kind of honeymoon thing, but actually they’re trapped because they can’t go back – they’re in debt and stuff. So they’re in this kind of chaos spiral, but also within that, there’s such humanity and realness and passion and love and heartbreak that it’s not about these two studious people who sit down at desks."
The film delves into the complexities of their relationship, acknowledging its imperfections while celebrating its enduring strength. "They’re having to play so many games, but then between the two of them, there’s this real, deep love and connection – despite what modern Western audiences would call toxic behavior, they love each other through that," Flynn elaborated. He sees this as a timely and relevant narrative. "That’s a really amazing, responsible story to tell now, when people are very prudish about people fucking up. People get thrown under the bus very quickly, but actually, here are two real damaged people. They come with all their trauma and it all plays out. You get to watch it and in between it there’s these amazing connections, whether it’s romantic or intellectual or whatever or reactionary. And then in the middle of it, there’s a story happening that you don’t really realize until the end."
Wood noted that Szumowska and Englert feel a profound personal connection to Dostoevsky and Anna’s story, finding parallels in their own experiences as artists navigating the film industry. "Małgo and Michał say they feel a very deep connection between the two of them and the two of their characters," Wood explained. "They always have felt like misfits of a certain film vibe; they were at film school together. In these more kind of conventional places, Małgo and Michał feel probably quite like the couple feel in the film – out of place." This sense of being outsiders, of embracing their unique perspectives, is central to the film’s ethos. "There’s something so endearing and gorgeous about that, how it really is the guts of the two of them to just be who they are and not code switch, nothing. They just are who they are. And that’s why I think that really helped as well. Really, really being so comfortable with strangeness and other people not understanding. They know their relationship and they know the push and pull of it and they understand it."
Wood further emphasized that Dostoevsky and Anna’s unconventional approach to life and creation mirrors that of the directors. "Anna and Fyodor don’t need all these people in the West to understand what they’re doing because they get what they’re doing and they get what they’re doing when they’re writing together. They don’t have a system and a process that is recognizable to anybody else. It’s different. And that’s the same as Małgo and Michał."
The Wildest Days: A Celebration of Shared Experience
The collaborative spirit and improvisational nature of "The Idiot(s)" culminated in some truly memorable, and at times surreal, on-set experiences. For Wood, the final day of shooting stands out as particularly poignant. "The last day was quite wild because we knew it was the last day and we were all so bonded," she recalled. "From the moment I woke up, I had that feeling in my tummy of the end. It was so sad and devastating, and you just start to try and maybe put a few little tiny walls up to protect your heart a bit from the leaving. But you can’t do that in that world because our leaders are so not that – they’re like, ‘No, let’s go into it. Let’s go into that feeling. Let’s not turn away from each other. Let’s be in the ache.’"
This emotional intensity was channeled into a shared experience of creation and catharsis. "We had so much to do, and we just also were dealing with huge, huge feelings. I just remember walking around with that little portable speaker and we’re dancing – because we had to carry a speaker around with us everywhere we went just so that we could not fall into despair; we had to have constant cheery music on – and we kept going and going. The day kept getting longer and longer. In between scenes, we’re all hugging each other and sobbing. And then we shaved your beard, Johnny. We went and shaved your beard and then we burnt the beard. Or did we burn the beard?"
Flynn confirmed the ritualistic nature of the beard burning. "Burnt the beard in a ceremony. On a Saturday night, every weekend, there’d be a community dance and they’d play really good music, but it was all these people over the age of 50 dancing and doing quite classic dance moves in this huge, beautiful hall. And we ended up there in the garden burning this beard." The experience, though tinged with sadness, was also one of profound connection. "It smelled awful. Yeah, it was all mad and all brilliant, and embracing the madness was a big creative leap for me. It taught me a lot about trusting that openness that you need in this business."
Flynn further highlighted the film’s bold storytelling, which often defied conventional production logic. "In a time where film is so locked into the concept of marginal error because of financing and stuff, doing something that embraced bold storytelling was so refreshing because it was normally stuff that gets shut down by producers and financiers: ‘What do you mean you’re going to do an extra scene where X, Y, Z happens?’ Then that scene ends up in the film and it’s one of the most beautiful moments." He cited a dream sequence as an example of this daring approach, where the narrative shifts to reveal all the characters watching the protagonists’ actions. "I mean, there’s a whole sequence in the film that’s a dream sequence where it starts in our apartment and then the camera spins around and you realize that everybody, all the characters from the story, are watching us play this out. That whole couple of days was absolutely nuts. Insane. I didn’t know I was going to be whipped naked by Aimee’s character’s mum until it was happening, and it was just like, Yeah, great."
The Power of Improv and Uncharted Territory
The extensive use of improvisation in "The Idiot(s)" was not a free-for-all but a carefully orchestrated dance of creative discovery. Wood clarified that while improvisation was key, it built upon a solid foundation. "There was a definite structure and there were definitely very sturdy anchors for us. It was more what would be added on the day, like a brand new thing. We kind of did everything that was scripted, I would say. It was like we had two scripts, maybe – the second one, we did not know of until we arrived on set. It was like there were kind of two going on at the same time that were merging."
This dynamic collaboration fostered a deep sense of trust between the actors and filmmakers. "The more we got into it and the more we brought, the more they responded," Flynn noted. "We realized that that’s what they wanted was for us – to be invested in that level." He pointed to a specific scene where Anna finds him drunk at a casino. "The scene that was written was a tiny scene in the middle of that, but everything that spans either side of it, which I love so much – that’s improvisation we did after that went on and on and on."
Wood described this extended improvisational sequence as a highlight. "So crazy. It was so long because they just let us go. We were walking down the street in this gorgeous little town, fully screaming at each other and jumping on each other. But that was a tiny scene in the script, and that is probably my favorite moment." This willingness to let the actors explore and expand upon the material allowed for moments of raw, authentic emotion and physical expression.
Flynn concluded by reflecting on the rarity of such a collaborative environment in independent filmmaking. "I’ve never had that kind of symbiosis where, especially on any film of this size, it’s always trying to punch above its weight in terms of how much you’re shooting and what you’re trying to achieve. But it was just so hungry for what you would give it, and you felt that reciprocal kind of relationship. We knew our characters so well by then, and we would just be chucking more in. It felt so playful and so raw and fun and quite rare for an indie film to be that brave." This bravery, this willingness to embrace the unpredictable, is precisely what makes "The Idiot(s)" a compelling and unforgettable cinematic experience.
