Spiders are in the bank. A black comedy with English humor. The film is not even about the death of Stalin, but about the subsequent struggle for power. Stalin himself appears in several short scenes. The background of the film is a death and torture machine, which by definition is monstrous. And also the survival of those who created this machine. This can already be grimly funny, as the creators of the death machine do not elicit sympathy when they become its victims. The struggle for power in such conditions is inevitable and will go not for life, but for death. "The Death of Stalin" mixes both reality and fiction. So the events with the concert and the note took place in reality, however, the film conveys them inaccurately. Nothing is known about the contents of the note: it was retold by someone else’s words by a person who had never seen the note. At the same time, much is fictional. The characters of Molotoy and Malenkov changed beyond recognition.
Black comedy is a risky genre. Someone will definitely not like it. Therefore, "Death of Stalin" is clearly not for everyone, like any film of this genre. We predictably didn’t like the movie for those who sigh in the good old days. Claims that the leaders and time are not shown as they were. Behind this dissatisfaction lies the subconscious belief that a single moment (or persona) of the Soviet past must be shown in one and only one way. Stalin must be shown as a cruel winner of the Second World War. Khrushchev is a corn freak. Brezhnev is a phlegmatic Kremlin sage, etc. This shows that the cult of personality is not dead. The notion that there can only be one correct image still lives on. Not for nothing in the film Malenkov chooses one of the most correct portraits. The Death of Stalin is a comedy. And it should be seen as a comedy. To find fault with the film from a position of reality inconsistency is like picking on Lincoln the vampire or Monty Python’s King Arthur. There is a saying that comedy is tragedy plus time. Time has passed, but not everyone is ready to laugh. My first textbook opened with a portrait of Lenin. And I spent my early school years reading high-sounding stories about party members (Stalin was not mentioned at the time). On the one hand, it's a pity, because I could read something useful. And on the other hand, it's a unique brainwashing experience. I knew it and could feel it. But this does not prevent me from laughing at the attempts of the Soviet leaders to wrest power from each other at any cost. And someone remembers stories about pioneer heroes with nostalgia and remembers how warmed the soul Komsomol ticket. They still don't laugh.