Stinker (2025)
Directed by Yerden Telemissov
Screenplay by Telemissov & Sergey Litovchenko
Starring Irka Abdulmanova, Zangar Akhmet-Qazy, Dulyga Akmolda, Bakhytzhan Alpeis, Ailin Sultangazina, & Chingiz Kapin.

Comedy / Sci-Fi

★★★★ (out of ★★★★★)

DISCLAIMER:
The following essay contains
SLIGHT SPOILERS.

At Fantasia 2025, Stinker took the prize for biggest heart. Yerden Telemissov’s film, co-written with Sergey Litovchenko, tells the story of a homeless man called Sadyk (Bakhytzhan Alpeis) at wits end when he discovers an alien (Chingiz Kapin) has landed in a nearby outhouse outside the shop of a cold, hard grandmother, Nadya (Irka Abdulmanova), who lives with her curious granddaughter (Ailin Sultangazina). All four of them later come together in the face of local government overreach to take care of each other in spite of many differences. A large aspect of Stinker is science fiction, obviously due to the presence of an alien, yet the film is really a drama about people on the lower rungs of society’s hierarchy learning how to look after each other when nobody else can or will. While the Kazakhstan setting obviously comes with its own regional specifics, the story’s core is about inequality between those at the top of society and those at the bottom; this doesn’t change too much from one country to the next. Stinker is about society’s have-nots realising that creating and sustaining community is the most important possession of all.
Stinker openly critiques the classism of capitalist societies, as the mayor—or, as Sadyk refers to him, “the local Napoleon“—and his right-hand cop prepare for an upcoming presidential motorcade. The mayor orders that, among other things, “drunks and vagrants are to be removed.” This isn’t just a movie plot, it’s the same thing that happens when big events like the Olympics come to town, or even Taylor Swift, apparently. Addicts and the homeless are seen as blights upon a capitalist city. Luckily the mayor’s cop lap dog isn’t too smart or effective, so Sadyk and friends manage to hold their own mostly. When the alien arrives, it doesn’t see life or people through a classist lens. It doesn’t reject Sadyk’s help just because Sadyk looks a certain way, whereas other humans judge the homeless man to the point they, even Nadya for a time, call him “Mr. Stinker” as a cruel nickname. The alien begins to reveal various things about humans just by its presence, from the foolish prejudices of human beings to our potential for transformational, empathetic humanity.

It’s understandable that Sadyk has lost hope in the world, at least at the start of the film, when we see things like the local cop believing in a flat Earth (“I saw it on YouTube“), the mayor pontificating about his worldview using elements of Babe to explain himself (“We are above them. We are their masters.”), and the mayor indoctrinating the cop into a patriarchal, misogynistic worldview by explaining to him how best to control a potential wife; a bleak snapshot of humanity, indeed. Sadyk’s hope in humanity is restored by the journey of attempting to help the alien return to its own kind, as it further reveals the good of others, such as Nadya, whose increasing generosity towards Sadyk and later the alien prove she’s not coldhearted like her resting frown might suggest. The alien brings the humans together at every turn. It also helps teach Sadyk about the necessity of people coming together, after showing Sadyk its home planet through psychic link: “Our ancestors couldn‘t make peace with each other, and many died in a nuclear war.” The alien at once reveals where humanity is almost likely headed at some point in the future, and also where humanity could go instead, should they choose to prioritise finding common ground.
The takeaway from Stinker is that those in power are not going to protect us, it’s only in community with one another can we find the power needed to keep each other safe. In one scene, after Nadya and Sadyk bring the alien into her home for dinner, the alien remarks that it doesn’t quite understand the concept of family since its species doesn’t exist in the same way as humans. Later, the alien comes to understand that community is family; you don’t have to share blood to be part of a family with others. Stinker is a beautiful science fiction film with a heart of gold that urges people to look beyond the cage of class, to see a person’s intentions instead of their immediate exterior, to find those who understand your struggle and share in it, because only together can we fight the powers that would rather crush us than help us.