Nikolai Khamyanov stands apart among those who make humor at the intersection of hopelessness and common sense. His "Money Is Not a Problem" is a tour through the narrow streets of a harsh reality, where bartering with a masseur looks like a better investment than any banking scheme.
Here the orphanage is not a backdrop for pity, but a platform for a dark series with elements of a family thriller, and the key issues of growing up look more absurd than those solved at the sessions of expensive psychologists. Jokes about killer friends and parties among corpses sound like a squeeze of honesty that life doesn't usually demand. In this setting, personal growth is just another line of products that you have to choose between a visit to your Armenian kin and a Russian public restroom.
Khamyanov's main trick: making darkness into comedy without falsity and lying only for laughs.
