A precocious teenage girl is thrown into a relationship with a distant relative in Moscow, where she quickly becomes a tool in the criminal underground. The social worker that delivers her completes the complex dynamic as three very different women navigate the seedier sides of Moscow and New York.

The running theme of The Radioactive Kid boils down to the fundamental question “Are people good?” The upshot is a complicated NO. How each episode arrives at such a bitter answer is what makes this layered narrative so fascinating.

The slow arc of ELEANOR, the social worker’s clumsy good deeds that grease the wheels for EVE’S fall from grace, as well as the guilt that fuels ELEANOR’S struggle to rescue EVE and bring her back to America. In the first episode, EVE is a child, but in order to survive and stay a step ahead of MASHA, her distant relative in Moscow - she quickly becomes a cynical young woman, reveling in her career as a fledgling criminal. Over time, MASHA imagines a job big enough to leave her messy life behind and start a new one somewhere else. She begins to dream of good things for her and EVE - but what happens when the tough choices present themselves - who is abandoned when the stakes are raised? Who is loyal? In the end, no one. 

 

At first glance, these flawed, charismatic women are archetypes – naïve, nurturing and ruthless. But once they come in contact, this scratches beyond the surface of their persona – mobilizing a craving to absorb a quality into their own identity. As each story develops, they yearn to be like each other; younger, braver, tougher, smarter, funnier. 

 

Marked by emotionally raw performances and an unflinching writing style that witnesses their darkest moments, this series will peel back the truth on the day-to-day ruthlessness of modern Russian life, delivering a level of verisimilitude that has never been accomplished in Western depictions, brushing stereotypes aside and replacing them with the frank reality of post-Soviet Moscow. 

 

In the tradition of Cassavetes (Gloria, A Woman Under the Influence), Almodóvar (All About My Mother), Scorsese (Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore) and Bergman (Persona) this show will dig beneath the skin of the single mother, the guardian angel, the lost kitten, the predator, the diva, the fuckup. 

 

Messy. Bittersweet. Surprising.