CinemaSerf

May 15, 2024

7.0

"Zhenya" (Maryana Spivak) and husband "Boris" (Aleksey Rozin) are in the final throes off their divorce proceedings and boy, can't that come soon enough. Their relationship has become the epitome of toxicity and is seriously stressing out their son "Alyosha" (Matvey Novikov). Not only must he share their small flat with them, but he must also listen to their increasingly caustic conversations that frequently concern him and his custody. I'm not sure his self-obsessed parents realise that he can hear every word and indeed it's probably forty-eight hours before either of them realise that they haven't seen him for a while. They try his friends - of whom he has few, his school and trawl the neighbourhood. All to no avail so the police are called in and the search becomes more urgent. Has he just fled to get some loving affection and attention from his warring parents or is something more sinister afoot? What is curious to start with here is that this couple could ever have loved each other in the first place. He's about as selfish as it's possible to be and she, well she's a pretty ghastly piece of work - a chip off the old block when we meet her equally odious mother (Natalya Potapova). The film doesn't conclude in any traditional sense but the photography in an abandoned building towards the end (part one) offers us quite an allegorical look at that which was once functional and even good is now rotting away through neglect and indifference. The part two of the end takes us forwards a few years and without providing us with answers, does make some suggestions that seem to fit complementarily with the whole bleakness of this analysis of human nature at it's most introspectively angry and egotistical. The acting from the two principles is taut and plausible and the effective depiction of negative energy is potent throughout - even when they need to work together. Aptly titled, then again maybe not entirely?