It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

This film really has to be considered as one of my favorite comedies! I am a Greta Garbo fan but definitely do not think that makes me biased. The quality of the casting in this movie was absolutely superb. The entire cast excels, without any exception. Many might think that this movie might be a bit dated or cheesy when you look at it with modern eyes but they are definitely wrong and if they choose not to watch it will miss a great opportunity to see a truly excellent movie. Sometimes a person just has to enjoy a movie for what it is. Greta Garbo is not only very funny in this classic, she is inexpressibly lovely. A must-see for any who enjoys the classics and a great comedy.

At the core of this film is a dispute between the French and the Russians over which nationality a certain set of rich jewelry belongs to. Three Russians have obtained the jewels (legally from what I understood) although technically they had belonged to a powerful individual from France. The leading actor plays a Frenchman who is trying to make a compromise for both sides, but the three Russians want a consultant for themselves, so they hire the titular Ninotchka, a Russian woman devoid of all joy and happiness.The Frenchman meets this woman before finding out she is the consultant for the Russians, and as if it was fate, he falls for her. He is persistent to spend time with her, and even realizes she does not enjoy life as she should, so he attempts to make her laugh, but there is no success until he does something unintentionally - he falls over a table in a restaurant and it makes everybody, including Ninotchka, to laugh themselves silly.After this incident, things seem to change for Ninotchka, and she even laughs during very serious matters such as while she consults the three Russians about the dispute at hand. She truly enjoys life now and she comes to like the man, Leon, a lot, and eventually falls in love. This doesn't come about without some struggles, of course, but the heart of the movie effectively tells us that life is definitely worth enjoying.This being a comedy, I wish there was more and better humor involved, but this movie is delightful in that its message is inspiring and still does fine without "better" comedy.3.0/4.0

Casablanca has long been my favorite movie. Ninotchka has similar elements - memorable lines, romance, political overtones and satire , made 3 years earlier. Greta's face shows emotion even when she's not showing emotion. She foreshadows Spock! Her glance at an opulent store display speaks volumes. When the does laugh, the screen virtually splinters. Sally Field and Robert Osborne introduced this movie on TCM recently. Sally's insights are special, pointing out the comedic flair of Greta in several scenes, as when she's "executed". Communism and capitalism take their share of abuse; the contrast is portrayed and parodied. Greta even mentions "social justice", truly a modern leftist buzzword and a Marxist concept. Ninotchka is fun from the first scene to closing credits, with one last parting joke...to be interpreted in a number of ways. Melvin Douglas is superb, a Chevalier/Cary Grant type. Ina Claire was a stage legend and held up well versus Douglas and Garbo, high praise indeed. The 3 minute scene with Greta and Bela Lugosi is priceless. I gotta make room in my top 10 for Ninotchka; like her, I continue to crack up thinking back on it.

My only other experience of Garbo was in the 1925 silent film "The Joyless Street", a rather somber picture that featured her charisma with strong body language and facial expressiveness. Apparently the tag line 'Garbo Laughs' was meant to convey a change in character from her ensuing screen roles, but it takes a while to get there. It's only when her charmingly aggressive suitor (Melvyn Douglas) falls out of his chair that the stuffy Nina Ivanova Yakushova breaks character and reveals a human being underneath a commissar's clothing.The film is billed as a comedy, but it's not of the laugh out loud variety. The film delivers it's humor in the witty dialog between Garbo and Douglas, along with the calculated antics of the three apparatchiks Ninotchka has been sent to spy on and see that their mission is successful. I don't know if the title 'Envoy Extraordinaire" was a legitimate one, but Garbo takes it seriously, to the point of declining a railroad porter to take her bags, citing the 'social injustice' of it all. There are a handful of these ideological viewpoints woven into the script; another was Ninotchka's observation that as a capitalist, Douglas's Leon D'Algout was the product of a doomed culture.Personally, I enjoyed the film, though I had a sense that it started to drag at the ninety minute mark or so. The resolution of the romance between Ninotchka and Leon would have required the Russian comrade to defect so in that respect it seemed somewhat contrived. But not any more so than having the Grand Duchess Swana (Ina Claire) simply give away her jeweled fortune to entice her rival away from Paris.