Review: "Reds" Is Another Loss For Communism

It doesn't collapse quite like the Soviet Union, but Warren Beatty's epic falters all the same.

December 5, 2023

On May 26, 1896, Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov became Czar of Russia. Four days later, the government held a festival to celebrate: a town square, 150 distribution buffets, and 20 pubs got built for the occasion. An estimated 500,000 people came to Khodynka field in Moscow for the festivities; only 1,800 police officers were present to maintain order, a ratio of 277 to 1.

Four years prior, the nation emerged from a famine that claimed 400,000 lives. The monarchy had grossly mishandled the disaster, from refusing to modernize agriculturally to banning grain exports. On that day at Khodynka, the promise of a bread roll, sausage, pretzels, gingerbread, and a cup with a cold coin nestled at the bottom, excited the Russian people.

But rumors of insufficient supply quickly spread amongst the crowd, causing a stampede. Thousands of people got trapped in the ditches, resulting in nearly 1,300 deaths.

Miles away, at the French embassy, was a gala honoring the newly-crowned Czar and his wife, Alexandra. Despite the tragedy, Nicholas attended: a show of bad faith that reflected his reign, the downfall of the Romanov dynasty, and the centuries-old Russian monarchical political system.

Nicholas was an easy man to figure and thus villainize. He was a staunch believer in his last conversation, a soldier for the cause last championed, and a defender of the principles set forth by others, particularly his wife. Czarina Alexandra saw her subjects as pawns of the Russian aristocracy, and even her grandmother, Queen Victoria of England, could not convince her of the symbiotic relationship between monarch and nation. Alexandra was blind, so Nicholas was too.

Whether one blames Alexandra for clouding Nicholas' judgment or him for allowing her to, the Russian people hated the monarchy... and were ready to act. In 1917, they revolted. The Romanovs had indulged in lavish parties, bathing in luxury while the country crumbled.

No more.

Approximately 1,500 people died in Petrograd (modern-day St. Petersburg and then capital of Russia); the aristocracy got overthrown, and the Czar and his family were taken prisoner and eventually held captive in the “House of Special Purpose.” A provisional government was instated, with the white Mensheviks and red Bolsheviks dueling for control. Due partly to anti-war sentiment that destroyed the white movement, the Bolsheviks launched a successful insurrection on October 25, 1917. The Red Party assumed control, executed the Romanovs, won the Civil War, and formed one of the greatest powers in world history: the Soviet Union.

It was decades of resentment for an uncaring aristocracy, then years of bloodshed between people once united in their quest for renewal. It was months of ceaseless revolt, with slaughters in the streets and a cessation of patience, reason, or justice.

It was “Ten Days That Shook the World.”

The Kremlin Wall Necropolis was the national cemetery of the Soviet Union. It houses the tombs of the most revered Soviet leaders, including Josef Stalin and Yuri Andropov. Only three Americans rest there: Charles Emil Ruthenberg, leader of the Communist Party USA, whose ashes got sent to Russia at the Bolsheviks' request; William Dudley Haywood, a Soviet sympathizer and workers’ rights activist who fled to Russia after getting remanded on charges of espionage, incitement, and desertion.

The third is John Reed.

Reds presents itself as fact as much as fiction. It admits the irrelevance of its subjects while insisting on their greatness. It condemns the Soviet Union while sympathizing with its principles. It knows everything in a vacuum but does not understand that no film can thrive as a vacuum seller. It must prove that the subjects, and thus the subject matter, are worthy of our investment.

John Reed and Louise Bryant are at a small gathering attended by elderly elitists. The conversation is passionless, only common gossip inoffensive to those blocking out the world. The concerns are recalling the name of a vegetarian’s spool-selling ex-boyfriend and the emergence of free love in Greenwich Village. John and Louise are young people of passion, the type to not see the irony in having such an incendiary view of a nation half a world away. We understand why they champion their cause but cannot forget how little that means against the bigger picture.

The interviews interspersed throughout the film know it too. For every person who recalls the pair, three hardly remember them. Fueled by anti-Communist sentiment, many are reticent to lend credence to Reed or Bryant. Within them, we find a few with no vested interest in their political leanings because they have no interest at all. Sentiment depends on recollection, and John and Louise are anonymous to them.

Historical insignificance makes them two people with little value outside the principle of belief, but Reds forgets that principled stands are worthless if the principles are flawed. It also forgets that thematic anchors must get developed beyond the vaguest characterization. Thus, every development in the relationship feels familiar but in ways that repel instead of compel.

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Despite the endless monologues, interpersonal disputes, and break-ups, neither of the pair's internal mechanisms are coherent. The interviews never illuminate their perspective and often contradict the movie entirely. One woman recalls Bryant’s relentless pursuit of a fancy coat she had brought from Germany. Where is this woman in our Louise? The film asks us to believe it is in her reunion with Jack, her “get-what-I-want” attitude overcoming the icy tundras of the Soviet Union. We cannot believe it. She has sacrificed her chance for growth too often to believe love is the remedy.

One man calls them pretentious hacks, claiming that Reed had no talent for poetry, that he and Bryant’s plays were dreadful, and neither could act. Where is the criticism of the duo throughout the story? The film cannot decide the intention of the interviews. Are they supporting a balancing act where reality is rendered irrelevant in the face of belief? Are they reflecting the complexity of perspective, detailing the nuances of “case-by-case” fact-finding to make us feel the pair are just as generally crucial as specifically insignificant?

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The narrative wants Jack to be a freedom fighter thrusting himself into the line of fire for a worthy cause and Louise to be a woman of political passion who refuses to get oppressed by the patriarchy. The documentary aspects have no focus, and we cannot ignore them. After all, we would not ignore a tablespoon of salt tossed into a bowl of cookie dough. If a film includes something, it cannot get disregarded or rationalized, only taken and dissected.

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The results force us to take everything at face value. Louise is the typical writer, seeking only critical attention that favors the ego, swearing they care nothing for the thoughts of others. She drips with hypocrisy regarding the specifics of her and Jack’s non-monogamous union, excusing her dalliances while condemning his.

On the other hand, Reed fails to see the irony in rejecting societal edicts and then adopting non-monogamy because monogamy is the norm. The only way to make a decision of your own is to make it on your own. He is a contrarian reactionary overflowing with passion but lacking vision or ambition. He is a ball of unfocused energy, surging ahead, blind to everything around him, focused on an idea he has no clue how or why to apply. The disputes over what breed of dishonesty is more contemptible feel weightless. The arguments over whether the two will proceed as one or split to explore the evolving political landscape grow tiresome. We spend an hour on petty arguments, an affair with a brooding romantic, and scotch.

Reds eventually makes some decisions about the course Jack and Louise chart, but the delivery makes them a passing thing. Louise matures during their separation, becoming more receptive to criticism and willing to work collaboratively. Considering she was delusionally self-assured long before she met Jack, the implication that their break-up sparked this maturation rings false.

Reds accomplishes a few of the things it absolutely must. It does not color the world falsely to manipulate mood or feeling. It appears as it does now, a stark reminder that the conflicts of past generations unfolded in the same world we face today. The revolution feels modern, a slice of world history familiar in execution. Visuals aside, the people seem ordinary enough to feel intimate while retaining the fire that fuels global change.

Unfortunately, its high points are so isolated that they accentuate the ineptitude. Something can get said for empowering citizens and the hypocrisy of a sitting President running on a “No War” ticket and then plunging the nation into conflict. Louise can speak well before a committee of smug, powerful men. Unfortunately, if the foundation upon which she generally engages rings hollow, we feel little compulsion to listen.

It renders Reds' rehashing monologues and romantic spats instead of capitalizing on meaningful moments frustrating. If Louise is to journey across a nation that, at its peak, spanned 8.65 million miles, let it be more than a cross-country ski trip. If Jack is to get imprisoned for his political dissent, let his captivity be more than a quick-fire conflict of which we see little and from which he gets quickly freed. Spare us the things done before; walk roads less traveled, and pave them with something more compelling than triviality.

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We get left feeling inspired by words from one of the witnesses. She says that if men hated wars, they would have ended long ago. Men like wars. They always have.

We then reflect on a man who speculates that someone seeking to change the world refuses to face his problems. We blend these perspectives to reach the only conclusion Reds allows.

Some seek to reshape the world in the name of something greater. We remember the names of those successful in these pursuits, for better or worse. No one seeks change without power, and those who want a little more make their names shine brighter. Even if the intentions were born pure, they often don't remain so.

After all, the Russian Revolution happened because of that human truth: if something can get exploited, it will. When that something is the people, revolution becomes inevitable. Do those who claim concern do so out of principle or need, some escape from themselves? Reds offers us nothing of our characters, so we must imagine them as they are on screen.

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Jack speaks loudly but says nothing, the early-20th-century equivalent to a Gen-Z Instagrammer spamming feeds with general musings and a “power to the people” vagueness they fancy antidotal. Louise is simply the visionless, vapid creative who capitalizes on the ambition of more self-actualized people to give herself something valuable to call hers. They need the revolution, which means they need suffering. The film ends before either must accept that, but it does not change the truth Reds wants to hide.

Art is interpretive, but good art gets interpreted as what it aims to be, not what it becomes thanks to its ineptitude. Reds is stunning to behold, entertains in the general ways all epics do, and rewards our patience with a dive into history. Sadly, this cannot convince us its protagonists deserved a 195-minute epic, that it understands its purpose, or justify to its audience John Reed being one of those three Americans buried at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.