In EXPORTING RAYMOND, Phil Rosenthal, creator of the long-running sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond (1996-2005) travels to Russia to help start a Russian version of the show, called Voroniny. The film's trailer begins with scenes from "live before a television audience" filmings and Rosenthal getting accolades for the show’s success. The image freezes as the narrator intones, "Then the Russians called." We flash to a stern-looking Gorbachev, the onion domes of the Kremlin, shots of Red Square and evil-looking weather. Are we supposed to be scared? It’s not as if the Cold War didn’t end twenty years ago.
I've never actually watched a full episode of ELR, but the impression I always got was that it was more geared to middle-aged married couples in the 'burbs than twenty- or thirty-something urbanites (yours truly being the latter). As such, I would have hoped the documentary would make allowances for those unfamiliar with the show – but instead, EXPORTING RAYMOND assumes we’re all fans and know it well. If we were talking about a sitcom indisputably iconic to American culture -- such as Seinfeld, which supplied us with a vast array of lingo now taken for granted (yada yada yada, close talker, regift, mimbo…) – well then, okay. But I can’t even claim to remember overhearing "Oooh, did you see Everybody Loves Raymond last night?" at the water cooler at any point during the show’s nine-year run.
The film's director, writer and star Phil Rosenthal also doesn't make for a very likable protagonist, considering how much fun he and the film make of Russia and its people, be it their architecture, traditions or even parking attendants. (At one point in the film, he whines childishly about how silly it is that his driver must exit the car to pay.) Later Rosenthal pouts at a military museum that the same driver proudly escorts him through – not Phil's cup of tea, I guess – so it’s no wonder the chauffeur makes up an excuse to ditch him in the end.
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