‘Idiotka’ Review: Anna Baryshnikov Shines in a Lead Role and Sews Chaos in Spirited Fashionista Comedy

variety.com:

Stephen Saito Writer-director Nastasya Popov finely threads a needle in her debut feature “Idiotka,” dipping into the chaotic life of Margarita (Anna Baryshnikov), an aspiring fashion designer with a barely functioning sewing machine in the tight-knit Russian district of West Hollywood.

Margarita seems as much a work in progress as the eternally under-construction house she lives in. She’s been making ends meet by attaching tags taken off well-known designer labels onto her own work, then pawning them off online.

But the clothes themselves show plenty of personality under the false advertising; accordingly, Popov delivers a boisterous tale of a woman coming into her own, told with real humor and heart.

Like one of Margarita’s dresses, there is at least some repurposed fabric in “Idiotka.” Margarita struggles both with asserting herself in a brutal industry and with stepping out of the shadow of her feisty family, but the comedy is all in how Popov puts those two sides together.