Anton Yeltsin
“LOVE, ANTOSHA” My rating: B+
93 minutes | No MPAA rating
I knew who Anton Yeltsin was, of course. I’d seen the young actor as Chekhov in J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” reboots, and in a couple of other movies like Jodie Foster’s “The Beaver.”
And of course I knew he died in 2017 at age 27 in a freak accident, pinned against a metal gate by his rolling automobile.
None of which prepared me for the gut punch that is “Love, Antosha,” a love letter to the late actor signed by his parents, his boyhood friends, and his heavy-hitting acting colleagues.
It seems nobody who knew Yeltsin had anything but love for him. And that emotion comes roiling off the screen.
Garret Price’s documentary opens with home movies from Yeltsin’s childhood. What we see is an impossibly handsome kid with a big performer’s personality that fills the room.
We also get a bit of back story about his parents, competitive Soviet ice dancers who emigrated to the U.S.A. to get away from growing anti-Semitism in the new Russian Republic.
Here’s something I did not know: While a teen Anton was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, the devastating lung condition (the average life expectancy of a sufferer is 37 years). He was so full of energy, so good at masking his symptoms and plowing ahead, that many of his show biz colleagues were unaware that he had gone through life essentially under a death sentence.
Butler's Cinema Scene 