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Parents' Guide to

Silver Skates

By Barbara Shulgasser-Parker, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 13+

Romantic historical drama has violence, drinking.

Movie NR 2020 137 minutes
Silver Skates Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

  • Silver Skates Movie: Scene # 1
  • Silver Skates Movie: Scene # 2
  • Silver Skates Movie: Scene #3

Community Reviews

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age 14+

Based on 2 parent reviews

Aronvold
Aronvold Parent of 8 and 11-year-old
November 23, 2022
age 12+

This title has:

Educational value
Great messages
Elle M
Elle M Parent of 13-year-old
March 28, 2022
age 15+

Lack of ethics

Ethics : The hero join a gang of thieves. The robbery is presented as a fun game, thieves as malignant. The theft is morally justified: the thieves consider that the wealth of the bourgeoisie is not really theirs and should therefore belong to everyone (many speeches of communist inspiration). They also drink quite a lot of alcohol. Sex : Thieves date vulgar women, with open blouses, we see them touching and kissing their breasts. There is also a short sex scene between the hero and the heroin. Violence : There are shootings. Quality : My son (13 years'old) liked it, I didn't and considered he was too young to watch this movie.
See all 2 parent reviews

What's the Story?

In SILVER SKATES, Matvey (Fedor Fedotov) is an ace skater who glides on antique "magical" skates from his childhood, speedily delivering fancy pies to the elite in pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg, Russia. He lives with his lamplighter father, who is dying of tuberculosis. When Matvey is fired, he's offered a job with a gang of speed-skating pickpockets who teach Matvey their tricks as they navigate the frozen canals and rivers of the city to relieve the wealthy of their watches and wallets. Honest at heart, but desperate for money, Matvey seems conflicted about thieving, but it brings him face-to-face with the beautiful Alisa (Sonya Priss), daughter of the powerful Duke Nikolay (Aleksey Guskov). The duke's wealth and royal connections predict the impossibility of their union. But as a chemistry nerd longing for the unheard-of goal of studying at an all-male university, Alisa's courage is stoked by her love for Matvey. His underworld connections endanger them both, and the police attack the gang. Still, they make plans to go to Paris where she can study. The St. Petersburg police, headed by Arkady (Kiril Zytsev), violently attempt to stop the pickpockets and Alisa's departure but, implausibly, the lovers triumph.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: (2 ):
Kids say: Not yet rated

Silver Skates is a storybook Russian turn-of-the century period romance that at 137 minutes goes on a bit too long, and with its unlikely ending feels a bit forced. What redeems it is two appealing leads, Fedor Fedotov and Sonya Priss, coupled with lavish costuming and settings and exciting skating demonstrations by skilled skater-actors. This has a Dickensian feel, in which the rich are clueless about the debt they owe to the thousands of serfs on whose labor their wealth is built. Characters are underdeveloped, and our understanding of them relies on clichés about the decent poor and the rapacious and blindly privileged nobles. This a Titanic reboot on ice, with the romantic ingenues far less fleshed out than they were in the famed tragic shipboard romance.

The use of German philosopher Karl Marx's Kapital as a banned ideology foretells the irony that the loosely Marx-inspired brand of socialism-communism would one day bring down the oppressive aristocracy and replace it with an equally oppressive and arguably more murderous regime. (Only a few decades later Stalin would kill millions of his countrymen to maintain power.) The political references are drastically oversimplified, giving this one more category in which the movie disappointingly underperforms.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about why the aristocracy in many countries treat the poor badly. Why do you think Alisa didn't care about the distinction between her wealth and Matvey's poverty?

  • In 1900 Russia women weren't allowed to seek higher education without the permission of either a father or a husband. Why do you think women were denied rights for so long?

  • In what ways have things changed for women since the era of this movie? Are there ways in which things have remained the same?

Movie Details

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