SGIFF Review: Antidote (2024)

Antidote (2024) celebrates ordinary individuals coming together to expose Vladimir Putin and his regime, but excessively over-dramatises to get its point across, President Daryl Cheong writes. 

When Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned in 2020, the world met a new face of power and tyranny: Vladimir Putin. According to Western mainstream media, Russian President would allegedly poison his opponents and dissent in order to grapple onto power, and is frequently depicted as a madman.

In James Jones’s documentary, Antidote (2024), we see the full extent of this psychopathic behaviour. The film was screened at the Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF) this year and was the Winner of “Best Editing in a Documentary Feature” at the Tribeca Film Festival.

When the film begins, we meet Christo Grozev, whose investigative journalism exposed conspiracies surrounding the fatal tragedies like the Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 and the poisoning of Navalny in 2020. Grozev, who was featured in the Oscar-winning documentary Nalvany (2022), has been labelled as “Wanted” in Russia for his work as the former lead Russian investigator with the investigative journalism collective, Bellingcat.

Next, we meet Russian dissident and activist Vladimir Kara-Murza who was imprisoned in a gulag for speaking out against Putin, particularly against the war in Ukraine. Lastly, we are introduced to a whistleblowing anonymous scientist who was part of Russia’s complex network of poison-making mechanics. In depicting the latter profile, the film uses AI to hide his real face in order to protect him and his family–perhaps one of the more interesting and ethical uses of artificial intelligence in film so far.

In selecting these three profiles, Jones makes a clear point about how individuals within, against, and outside of the system all play a part in countering the regime of a dictator bent on maintaining his power. The argument of the film, then, becomes clear: Every individual has a responsibility to strip leaders like Putin from power.

And when individuals like these come together, overcoming a regime is entirely possible. After all, Grozev’s narrative intertwines with the whistleblowing scientist, whose exposure assisted Grozev and his Bellingcat organisation to unearth the plots and mechanisms exercised by Putin.

In the opening credits, the film quickly defined ‘antidote’ as an agent acting against a poison: Putin as poison, and these three individuals as the antidotes. The messaging is clear and the dramatisation of these three heroes encourages an audience to find courage to do the same.

But what about people like us who live such seemingly distant lives from Russia and its regime?

In a key reflection towards the end of the film, Grozev says, when eulogising his father who was suspected to be killed by Russian agents, “From the other end of the world, it seems abstract.” Indeed, poisoning, underground plots, bounty hunting seem like abstractions from spy and western movies. Yet, Grozev’s moment of reflection reveals the disconnect the world at-large feels towards such issues.

Amidst reports of far right movements embracing and even idolising Putin, the consequences of Putin’s actions are minimised and excused. Such state of the world underscores the importance of documentaries like Antidote, that expertly use the personal narratives of three different individuals to expose the critical need to stand up and speak out against regimes like Putin’s whose unethical means do not and cannot justify his authoritarian ends.

However, the extent to which the film succeeds in making this argument convincing leaves much to be desired.

Through Vox-inspired highlighting of texts, an unceasing music score throughout the film, and dramatic high key lighting for profile interviews, the film creates a sense of the dramatic, expected from thriller films. Understandably, the borrowing of such genre is an effective means for documentaries to draw an audience in and provide an access point emotionally and for the stakes. 

Yet, for a film emphasising the ordinary and everyday actions of our three heroes that help expose a regime, such over-dramatisation reduces the potency of the film’s messaging. After all, if there already exists a cognitive dissonance between seeing the consequences of Putin’s actions and the continued support for his regime, how does the film properly overcome the disconnect between the potential weight of everyday actions and the heightened drama of the plot?

For example, in highlighting Grozev’s heroism, Grozev’s son shares how his father pivoted from being a radio businessman to a journalist in 2014 out of passion and a desire for finding the truth. This could highlight how ordinary men from all walks of life can play a part. However, where this scene could have easily thrived in silence or a pause from the score to allow reflection and introspection for the audience, the film continued with its theatrics. With better tonal shifts and control, the film could have been rendered more convincing and effective.

When the film starts, it lays out that it is a work that is constantly developing and has been updated with recent news. This, of course, refers to Nalvany’s suspicious death in 2024 and Kara-Murza’s eventual release with Biden’s prisoner exchange deal in August 2024. When Kara-Murza is reunited with his family, Jones provides a moment of optimism that the fight remains hopeful. Yet, at a time when Putin’s new spy network takes the spotlight, and ballistic missiles rain on Ukraine, the success of the individual fight in mere exposure pales in comparison to the extensive work still to be done against the regime.

If it takes a community of ordinary individuals to work against a regime, cinema, as a communal site, could have been the perfect site to unite the everyday men. What a wasted opportunity, then, that Antidote, in chasing the emotional connection with an audience through theatrics, ironically fails to inspire the reflection and action urgently needed.

Antidote has completed its two screenings at the 35th Singapore International Film Festival.