Hello, Bright Things. It's Your Weekly Recs!

You only have power over people as long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything, he’s no longer in your power—he’s free again.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

Dear Wags,

To know Russia is be seduced by disappointment. The country’s history is defined by dueling impulses —endless longing for the West paired with endless rejection of it. Russia is the borderland of our values, a kleptocracy of hardboiled realists and romantic failures. It gave civilization some of its greatest literature and is the graveyard of our democratic pretensions.

Russia settled into being a rebuke to the old American optimism long ago. A good Russian understands the world is not on some golden escalator of progress; it simply limps along. To invest faith in individuals and liberal institutions is to exhibit symptoms of brain damage.

Americans seem to be coming round to that point of view. After all Russia’s cold war defeats, that’s a monumental victory. The Soviet Union spun its revolutionary sugar, but behind posters and parades lurked ancient imperial cynicism. The United States, for all its failings, believed its hype. American innocence, a blind spot and shield, had a way of reasserting itself in each generation. Maybe not anymore.

It’s somehow fitting that weeks of U.S. political turmoil have been punctuated by a Russian show trial. Evan Gershkovich, a 32-year-old American reporter, was just sentenced to 16 years in prison for espionage. That’s ludicrous but hardly surprising.

This is all grotesque deal-making—a tee-up for some prisoner exchange. Vladimir Putin would like to retrieve Vadim Krasikov, an actual agent and murderer, now doing time in Germany for assassinating a Chechen exile. That’s just way it’s done, you see: There’s the state narrative, and there is ruthless brinksmanship behind the curtain. How familiar we’ve become with such hypocrisies.

Gershkovich is the first American reporter to be accused of spying in Russia since the fall of the Berlin Wall. He’s been held in Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison for more than 400 days. The hellish conditions in that place are well-publicized, but friends says he’s bearing up with humor. The son of Russian émigrés, Gershkovich has deep affection for the country that jailed him. His attitude has been sunnily American.

His Yekaterinburg trial was closed to outside observers. Still, journalists were allowed a brief glimpse of the proceeding as they kicked off. In the manner of all Russian prisoners, Gershkovich’s head was shaved and he stood inside a glass box. Somehow, he managed a smile.

Russians are not known for smiling even at the best of times; an old proverb says grinning for no apparent reason is a sign of stupidity. The careless smile, given freely on good days and bad, is an American thing.

Or it used to be. Now we have our own scowling strongmen, and share cynicism about rigged games and secret cabals. Whatever happens in Russia, there is always Tolstoy. The loss of a child’s brand of idealism brings the consoling poetry of grief. But it’s a lousy deal, dumping American brightness without gaining a Russian soul.

One day, Gershkovich will walk in the sunlight again. When he does, perhaps he’ll remind us of the difference between real wisdom and affectations of hardness. We may wait in virtual Levertov cells and tell ourselves the world is rotten, but inside us is the peculiar American wish to smile, for no reason at all.

Yours Ever,

You can write Evan Gershkovich an email of support here. He receives correspondence in prison after it is translated into Russian. It isn’t easy for him to respond, but via his website he sends this message: “I am humbled and deeply touched by all the letters I received. I’ve read each one carefully, with gratitude.”

Wag Glen Powell: Movie Star!

Twenty-eight years ago, Twister made a Holstein cow fly through the air. We don’t remember anything else about it, but that’s entertainment! The movie made $992 million in today’s dollars. Folks at Universal are giddy about the tracking numbers for this weekend’s very belated sequel — a $50 domestic million opening is just the cyclone Hollywood needs. “I think those estimates are low,” says Our Pal in the C-Suite. “The industry has been so traumatized by failure they don’t want to believe in what a blockbuster this could be.”

We’ll see. Twisters has the field to itself on a July weekend that was jammed with tent poles in the past. Next weekend there’s the premiere of Deadpool & Wolverine, which carries the real weight of box office expectations. “Twisters is in the better position,” says C-Suite. “There’s a narrative about Marvel that has disappointment baked into it. Like, if it doesn’t smash records it’s a failure. Twisters isn’t part of a franchise. The original came out before a lot of the audience was even born. It feels fresh, has heartland appeal, and there’s Glen Powell.”

Glen Powell! He’s the industry’s hottest commodity because he vibes like a movie star from the golden era: A heightened version of a solid guy, who loves his folks and radiates self-deprecating charm. His moniker even sounds like it was on a marquee in 1956—who named a kid in Glen in 1988? He’s playing an archetype — the cocky cowboy who sweeps an uptight city girl (Daisy Edgar-Jones) off her feet. That formula used to be fail-safe, but the business these days is full of nasty twists. If Powell and a few hurtling projectiles can ride this juggernaut home, Uni has the defining picture of the summer. —Melissa Reeves

Farewell, My Lovely

Lady in The Lake (Apple TV +). Wag Suprema Laura Lippman’ s killer thriller was the sort of book that makes readers fantasize about who’ll play who in the adaptation. The wait is over: Series creator Alma Har'el renders a noir vision of 1966 Baltimore, with Natalie Portman starring as a Jewish housewife trying to reinvent herself as an investigative reporter. Meanwhile, Moses Ingram is a survivor whose luck runs out on the bad side of town. This mystery is full of smart touches, like when Maddie (Portman) watches Cleo (Ingram) modeling in a store window, an eerie send-up of a real artifact from 1966 —the Marlo Thomas sitcom That Girl. — Judith Bessemer