Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Navalny’ on HBO Max, the Academy Award-Winning Documentary About Putin’s Chief Adversary

Navalny (now on HBO Max) captures its subject during the most volatile time of his life, and that’s saying a lot. Alexei Navalny is the Russian politician who spent a decade opposing President Vladimir Putin’s corrupt regime, and, for his efforts – besides numerous baseless arrests and other harassments – was famously poisoned with a terrifyingly close-to-fatal dosage of a Novichok nerve agent; Daniel Roher’s (Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band) documentary follows him during the following year, as Navalny recovers from the attack and mounts his comeback. Watching the film, it’s easy to see why the film won the Oscar for best documentary feature, since Roher streamlines the narrative into a vise-grip thriller led by a savvy and charismatic protagonist.

NAVALNY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Navalny perches on a stool, center-frame for a head-on interview. Roher asks from behind the camera, “If you are killed, what message does that leave behind for the Russian people?” Our eyes widen, but this is the point-blank reality Navalny may face when he returns to his Moscow home – and Navalny is pragmatic, even a touch upbeat in his tone when addressing such realities. It’s Jan. 17, 2021, and he’s ready to leave Germany, where he’s been recovering and regrouping from his poisoning, and fly to Moscow. He boards the plane and a crowd of reporters and admirers greets him with a flurry of questions and cameras. What will happen when he lands? Will he be arrested? It sure seems unlikely that state authorities will let him be free to do as he pleases, to continue his anti-Putin campaign. Navalny seems poised, as ever, although the rest of us have butterflies in our guts. And then Roher cuts away, because movies so often tease us with a suspense-bubble like this, and wait until the end to pop it.

So, a subtitle: THREE YEARS EARLIER. We get some background on Navalny, a lawyer and family man in his 40s whose political resistance to Putin got him arrested many times and banned from state-ruled TV, newspapers and public assembly. I’m pretty sure that only helped him – his M.O., in his own words in slightly broken English, is “zero money, a lot of work, internet.” Navalny turned to social media, where his Twitter posts and TikTok videos get tens of millions of views. He formed the Anti-Corruption Foundation, whose offices were raided by state goons. Another subtitle: TWO DAYS BEFORE POISONING. Navalny travels to Siberia, a trip which, in retrospect, went much smoother than he’s used to, considering his status as a guy with a bullseye on his back. On the flight home, he goes into convulsions. Emergency landing. Rushed to hospital. His family and many supporters, terrified. Somehow, he’s still alive. His wife, Yulia, is denied entry to the hospital. Goons block her. The doctor’s “official” statement is that no poison was detected in his body. Meanwhile, back in Moscow, thousands of Navalny supporters assemble to shout and protest and get roughed up and detained by police.

International leaders show public support for Navalny, provoking his release. His comatose body is loaded onto a German plane that takes him to a Vienna hospital for proper treatment. And hey, guess what, there’s evidence that he was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent, Putin’s chemical weapon of choice when he wants someone he doesn’t like and/or agree with to stop living –  “It’s like leaving a signature on a crime scene,” is how it’s described. Brazen. Navalny awakened and relocated to Germany with his wife and their two teenage kids. Navalny and Yulia meander on down the way to feed apples and carrots to the local donkey – a little pastoral respite from the political storm – but the biggest ass in this story is obviously Putin.

He’s convalescing in the countryside when Bellingcat journalist Christo Grozev – described by Navalny as “a Bulgarian nerd with a laptop” – reaches out. Grozev tracked some digital footprints leading to a handful of Russian agents and scientists comprising Putin’s poison task force. Grozev has their names, aliases, photos and phone numbers, even. He and Navalny and Navalny’s supporters piece together one of those bulletin boards you usually see in movies, outlining a conspiracy. They contact other news agencies to corroborate the information, and collude to publish this nuclear expose. But the morning before it all goes public, Navalny decides he’s going to call Putin’s poison-making and -distributing guys while we sit there and watch. 

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Haven’t seen an activist doc this gripping since Citizenfour – also an Oscar winner; also a documentary inspiring a ripple effect of influence – or maybe Navalny’s Oscar competitor All the Beauty and the Bloodshed.

Performance Worth Watching: Spend a little time with Navalny when he’s “on” for his many followers, and you understand how his counter-cult of personality grew to be so large. Spend a little time with him when he’s “off” and, well, he’s still kind of “on.” He knows this documentary is a boon to his international standing – which isn’t a criticism, just an observation about his magnetic personality. (One observation: Navalny and his wife, during an incredibly tense plane ride that may very well be the last time they sit next to each other, share earbuds and watch TV on their laptop. What are they watching? Rick and Morty.) 

Memorable Dialogue: Navalny says this with a bemused, almost glib matter-of-factness: “I was going home, and then I died.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Two major takeaways from Navalny: First, those phone calls. Jawdroppers. History on your TV, playing in front of you in real time. Second, a Nelson Muntz point-and-laugh at Putin, who’s too stupid to realize that his inept and heavy-handed control tactics are creating heroes and legendary near-martyrs, e.g., Navalny and, in the past year since he invaded Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. Putin keeps swatting at them, and they dodge and mock him on TikTok.

Beyond the borderline-profound, right-side-of-history feel of the documentary, Roher is a wily and astute filmmaker. He’s not afraid to challenge Navalny on his past “conversations” with Russian nationalists (Navalny’s replies are sort of satisfactory; he could beat around the bush a little less), or ask him about his mortality (the doozy of an opening scene frames the film as Navalny’s potential epitaph). The film is exquisitely structured, bookending the suspense, expediting the necessary details of Navalny’s political background and presenting the conspiracy against the man with taut efficiency. The footage Roher selects to include, when it’s not dropping whopper-twists, is quietly extraordinary, capturing bits of offhand color humanizing his subject – all politicians, no matter how noble, come with the slippery veneer that’s a core element of their profession – specifically, the Navalny-Yulia love story that’s a quiet thread weaved amidst the high drama. Many political and activist documentaries are urgently topical, but Navalny’s expert filmmaking renders that topicality with unusual vitality. It’s quite the extraordinary film. 

Our Call: Navalny is essential, its Oscar well-deserved. STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.