Reviewers ruthless for “Gierek”. “Like from the Kurski’s stables”, “tastelessness in the embrace without talent”

The script for the movie “Gierek” was being written for three years. It was another year from its completion before any work on the set began. The plot focuses on showing Edward Gierek’s decade in power and two years of his internment, when he was close to death. As producer Janusz Iwanowski noted:

We do not know a lot about Edward Gierek yet. There is no point in making political films from which we learn nothing new.

Tomasz Raczek on “Gierek”: tastelessness in the embrace of blindness

The director of Gierek is Michał Węgrzyn, who has quite a successful biography – “Proceder” about Tomasz Chad. At the beginning, the creators wanted to hire Piotr Adamczyk or Krzysztof Stelmaszyk, but – although at the beginning they considered this option in terms of a joke – they decided to entrust it to Michał Koterski. Koterski prepared for the role very solidly: he gained 17 kg, for six months he hid why he had such a change in his appearance and lifestyle, and he specially learned French in order to speak fluently in this language.

Tomasz Raczek, giving the production only two stars out of ten in the entry, does not mention the name of the main actor, writes generally about the level:

It is seen as an amateur theater playing a play written by a soap opera author. Anachronism armed with untruth, tastelessness in the embrace of blindness.

Jacek Cieślak from “Rzeczpospolita” uses similar words, who:

A hybrid of historical absurdities, chaff-like production and amateur script and acting was created.

In addition to Michał Koterski, the production includes, among others, Małgorzata Kożuchowska, Agnieszka Więdłocha, Sebastian Stankiewicz, Antoni Pawlicki, Rafa³ Zawierucha, Ewa Ziętek, Jan Frycz, Filip Tłokiński, Krzysztof Tyniec, Maciej Zakościelny, Mikołaj Roznerski, Cezary Żak.

Maximum 3/10

Karol Urbański from Film Eaters that “Gierek” “at best will be a school reading”, and Andrzej Brzeziecki from “Newsweek” that the film “defends itself only as a comedy”. On the other hand, Jakub Majmurek on the website of “Krytyka polityczna” asks the question: “What did not work out?”, To answer it in the following sentences:

Let’s enumerate: script, direction, dramaturgy, acting. That is, almost everything.

He also points out that the film is ridiculous. “The script is full of holes, the drama is crumbling. The dialogues are so embarrassing that many scenes become unintentionally funny and we wonder if the authors are not shooting comedies,” judges Majmurek. Jacek Szczerba from “Gazeta Wyborcza” in a similar tone:

In ‘Gierek’ there appear decent actors – Krzysztof Tyniec as a general of the KGB, Cezary Żak in the role of ailing Leonid Brezhnev. However, the nature of most of the scenes with their participation is reminiscent of ‘The President’s Ear’. The difference is that in ‘The President’s Ear’ it was supposed to be funny, and in ‘Gierek’ it turned out funny involuntarily.

In turn, in “Polityka” Joanna Solska notes:

There is no real Poland behind Gierek in Michał Węgrzyn’s film, however. Bareja remains unrivaled. There are also no real reasons why Gierek did not realize these aspirations to modernize the country. There is a lot of naivety, simplifications, and untruth.

In many reviews, regardless of the assessment of the attitude and actions of Edward Gierek himself, there is a statement that he deserved a better film. Kamil Śmiałkowski on Filmweb writes: “Inept hagiography. A film like from Jacek Kurski’s stable (because Maciej Szczepański would have made better)”, and Miłosz Stelmach from “Ekran”, who was among those more mildly evaluating the production (out of three stars out of ten), writes :

I can reassure everyone who had doubts about Koterski in the lead role – this film has bigger problems. Everything else belongs to them, for example.