Stunning thriller from Russia without love
THe Siberian film-maker Andrey Zvyagintsev got an Oscar nomination in the Best Foreign Language Film category, but not the statuette itself, for his brilliant 2014 film Leviathan.
With Loveless, deserving winner of the Jury Prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, I expect him to go one better. It is magnificent. The story is of a separated couple on the brink of acrimonious divorce, whose 12-year-old son Alexey (Matvey Novikov) goes missing shortly after overhearing their latest rancorous argument, in which it becomes clear that neither parent wants custody.
There’s a heartbreaking image, as each parent tries to convince the other to take him, of Alexey howling noiselessly behind a door. Both parents are deeply unsympathetic. His mother, Zhenya (Maryana Spivak), who is virtually welded to her mobile phone, lavishes all her affection on her affluent lover.
His father, Boris (Aleksey Rozin), has a pregnant girlfriend and is already prioritising the unborn child over the existing one. He is initially unmoved even when Zhenya phones him to say Alexey is missing.
Soon the film becomes a standard lostchild drama, but with the emotional twist that neither of them seemed to love him very much in the first place. Zhenya admits as much. She wishes she’d had an abortion, she says, and still resents the trauma of childbirth. Nonetheless, she and Boris are not monsters, just shockingly selfish.
In a way, they are victims themselves. Zhenya is scathing about her own mother’s lack of warmth and doesn’t seem to realise she has repeated the pattern with her own son.
Yet both parents, much as they loathe each other, are flung together in their genuine and profound desire to find Alexey. But where is he? For Western audiences, as well as the thriller element, Loveless also offers some fascinating insights into modern Russian society.
For example, Boris’s life is further complicated by his devoutly religious boss, who won’t countenance the idea of any of his employees getting divorced.
It’s a multi-layered, enthralling film, fully deserving of an Academy Award.