This ballad finds a groove and rides it out, showcasing the director’s chops and the star’s commitment while shining little new light on the ostensible subject.

Why make a film about Eduard Limonov, the globe-trotting Russian dissident poet and punk provocateur reviled for his pro-fascist sympathies? The filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov never musters a satisfying answer in this muddled English-language bio-pic.

[Whishaw] has never had a role quite as complex and contradictory as that of Limonov... It’s a fascinating, slow-motion car crash of a performance: destined for destruction, spiralling magnificently all the way down.

Unfortunately, there is no actual commentary on the political undertones of the film, which is particularly unsettling for a biopic based on Limonov, a figure whose political life was much discussed during his lifetime.