Reviewed by Alicia Glass 

The story of rising Kazakh music star Beybut and his navigating the trappings, and failings, of fame. 

So apparently the now-familiar story trope of a musician who climbs to fame and ignores or casts aside everyone who helped him get there along the way, including but not limited to fellow band mates and the main significant other, is a universal thing and doesn’t belong to any one particular country, race, or even music genre. Get your foot to tapping along with the great musical stylings of the Russian-based Khazakhstani pop music band A’Studio, who performed most of the music in the film, and let’s dive into this! 

Beybut (Kemenger Oral) and his band are finally finding popularity as musicians, graduating from where the film starts in a tiny club but with an already enthusiastic fan base, to negotiations with big-time producers and doing things like budgeted music videos and the like. On the home front, Beybut’s partner Alma (Karlygash Ermekova) is soon to have their first child, much to Beybut’s apparent happiness, if not trepidation at impending fatherhood. A lot of emphasis is placed on the impending childbirth and immediate aftermath, especially since it seems pretty clear that their child is a boy, much to both of their families’ joyous singing delight. 

Much is made throughout the film on Beybut’s being all of 23 years old and already having a woman and responsibilities like moving them all to a newer living space for the birth of their child, when instead it’s generally thought by the music industry folk that Beybut should be having fun and enjoying the success he’s been working so hard for, staying out late to celebrate packed-house showings and drinking until the wee hours of the morning with his fellow artists. And as much as Beybut really is joyous in his growing popularity, he has a good woman and an infant waiting for him at home, which easily leads to resentment when Alma calls him at parties to remind him of his responsibilities. 

And it is indeed that growing resentment that leads to Beybut developing a wandering eye when he’s introduced to a charming dancer, Zhul (Zhasmin Nurakhmet), on the set of his first big music video production. Zhul obviously has a thing for Beybut too, and like far too many entertainers before him, Beybut, still chafing under the weight of the real-world responsibilities his little family laid upon him, does the inevitable and pulls a runner, fleeing to a whole different country with Zhul in tow, to live out his now-solo artistic dreams. In theory. 

Except now, Beybut’s chosen partner, as much as she might be a brilliant dancer and lovely woman, is pretty far from the real world brains that one actually needs to survive in the entertainment business. Beybut could have his pick of any number of pretty baubles on his arm, but that does not a partner make. And speaking of partners, since Beybut shucked the band that had been with him since high school for a solo career, well, now he has noone to warn him that the producers of the music biz world can fleece a performer faster than a rancher with a sheep. Which is more or less exactly what happens, no surprise there. After all, a performer with his head full of his latest squeezes’ fleshy charms is only worthwhile if he produces new and good music from it, not a bunch of apologetic guilt-ridden writers block. 

Realizing at least some how badly he screwed up, Beybut comes back to Kazakhstan and tries to see Alma and their baby, fluffy gifts and apologetic recriminations in tow. In a movie full of absolutely wonderful song and dance numbers, the one where an entire building of leftover women and Alma herself tell Beybut to step off, in song and firm refusal, was possibly the best performance. For all the women out there who clung to the memory of how their love began and not what it turned into, I applaud Alma’s strength and courage to go it alone, no matter how sad about it she might be. 

 The film ends the way it began, with a musical performance from Beybut, now older and, we sincerely hope, wiser in the ways of the entertainment world and the company he chooses to keep around him. Reconciled with his former band-mates and at least on semi-speaking terms with Alma, Beybut finds himself able to smile and sing rapturously from the heart again, which honestly, is all he really wanted. Like legendary greats who came before him, Beybut is at heart a true artist and finds music everywhere in both the mundanities and the fantastical in his life, and wants nothing more than to share it with everyone.

The journey we went on with Beybut may have been excruciating at times, thrilling and exasperating in equal measure as we watch our artist sing and dance his emotions and tribulations throughout, but we are made to feel it all with him, and it is truly a visual and auditory treat.