Boris and Zhenya have to sell the apartment in which they lived together. They are separating and hating each other.

Constant insults accompany their daily life devoid of any manifestation of love especially toward their son Alyosha, described and experienced as an obstacle to their independence.

Both of them are having an affair, and Boris is already expecting a child with another woman, and the only concern he has is managing to keep his separation a secret in the company where he works, as its Orthodox Christian policy could create serious problems for him.

Zhenya's constant absences from home and from her role as a mother do not even allow her to notice her son's disappearance until the day after he disappears.

The police advise her to turn to an alternative organization to the public one for the search as the expected bureaucracy would result in slowing down the process.

Here the film's focus converges on cultural and political aspects that photograph modern-day Russia.

Zhenya has married to get away from her family of origin, with a barren mother full of resentment and prejudice; she has a teenage relationship with her cell phone and a new relationship with an older man who is significantly wealthier than her ex-husband.

Boris is reproducing the same dynamics with his new partner as in his first marriage.

Both are busy, however, searching for their missing son and frequenting pleasant places, abandoned buildings and dilapidated surroundings for this purpose.

At the same time, TV portrays the Crisis in Ukraine, as if to portray in parallel the torment of a couple and the recent implosion of the Soviet Union between cultures bound to the past and radical changes in contemporary living.

Obvious contrasts are depicted extremely effectively and analytically, through icy, unforgiving portraits of characters and environments compressed into impending apocalyptic upheavals.

A rigorous and stark portrait of the inadequacy of a culture displaced by an inability to absorb and manage the personal, social and political transformation of a people and why not of a world overwhelmed by inexorable changes.

27-Jun-2023 by Beatrice