Parents behaving badly
“Lovelessness,” says one of the characters in Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev’s new film, in one of those almost- say- the- title- of- themovie moments. “You cannot live in that state.”
It’s delivered one adult to another, but it’s a lesson not lost on 12- year- old Alyosha ( Matvey Novikov). After the kid overhears his parents arguing over which one will have to take him after their divorce, he heads out to school the next morning — and doesn’t come back.
Zhenya and Boris aren’t quick to notice him missing. Each is out on a date with their new significant other that first night, so it’s already more than 24 hours later when they realize he’s nowhere to be found. Snapping into action, they start hurling recriminations at each other.
Zvyagintsev’s last film was Leviathan, made in 2014 and, like this one, Oscar-nominated for best foreign-language film. That one looked at political corruption, with a subplot about dysfunctional families that included divorce, rape and adultery.
Loveless is far more focused in its critique of human nature; Zhenya continues to nurse a grudge over a painful delivery of her son (“He almost tore me apart!”) while she and Boris compete to see who can be more cruel to the other in this time of crisis. A visit to Zhenya’s mother to see if the boy wound up at her house finds her similarly lacking in parental affection.
Two hours is a lot of movie time to spend looking for a missing kid, although we do learn much about the way such cases are handled in Russia. A no- nonsense cop tells Zhenya that they simply don’t have the resources to chase runaways, while a volunteer group is so organized, they’ve clearly had a frightening amount of practice at this type of thing.
They i nterview neighbours, comb the woods, call the hospitals, search abandoned and lived- in apartment buildings, and put up posters. Never do we get a hint that anything is bringing them closer to a solution; meanwhile, the parents are doing all the right things but seem oddly unmoved by it all.
Not so the director, whose quiet, unshowy photography — the cinematographer is the same one from Leviathan — hints at a kind of environmental sadness at the circumstances. The camera may linger in a doorway or pause to gaze out a window, where the winter is coming on hard. The boy may or may not be found, but the film already seems to be telling us: Don’t get your hopes up.
••• ½