Film Review: "Loveless" ("Нелюбовь") (2017).

"A missing child. A marriage destroyed. A country in crisis." This is Loveless (Нелюбовь). This Russian drama film directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev and written by Zvyagintsev and Oleg Negin. Zhenya and Boris are going through a vicious divorce marked by resentment, frustration and recriminations. Already embarking on new lives, each with a new partner, they are impatient to start again, to turn the page – even if it means threatening to abandon their 12-year-old son Alyosha. Until, after witnessing one of their fights, Alyosha disappears.

Producer Alexander Rodnyansky said Loveless was envisioned as a reflection of "Russian life, Russian society and Russian anguish", but was also intended to be relatable to other countries. Rodnyansky also said a desire to look at a family was a starting point in the story's conception, and that Zvyagintsev started writing the story while visiting the United States in 2015. Zvyagintsev said the film began as an attempt to remake Ingmar Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage (1973). Zvyagintsev claimed to have met Bergman at Fårö in 2003, where they discussed a remake of the miniseries. An unsuccessful attempt to buy the rights to the miniseries led writers Negin and Zvyagintsev to redraw the plot, deciding to base it on news stories about the search and rescue team Liza Alert. Negin submitted the title Nelyubov to Zvyagintsev, which the director said is a Russian word referring to both a lack of love and a dire spiritual condition. While Zvyagintsev claimed to be uninterested in politics, his story reflects his belief that "The modern-day police don't care about people". He later said Loveless was "over-politicized". He chose to start the story in October 2012, which he said was a point when the Russian people were optimistic about beneficial political reform, ending in disappointment in 2015. The film also includes references to the war in Donbass. While the conflict is referenced through Russian propaganda, Zvyagintsev said his films are anti-government and that the scenes were intended to show the lives of his characters. Zvyagintsev's earlier film Leviathan (Левиафан), about corruption in Russia, received 35% of its budget from Russia's Ministry of Culture. However, this film was made without financial support from the national government because the Ministry of Culture disapproved of Leviathan when it was finished. The producers neither requested nor received any offers of state support for the film, Zvyagintsev said. Rodnyansky instead appealed for funding from wealthy Russian Gleb Fetisov and foreign companies.

The film stars Maryana Spivak, Aleksey Rozin, Matvei Novikov, Alexey Fateev, Marina Vasilyeva, Andris Keišs, Natalya Potapova and Sergey Borisov. There is little plot to speak of -- the film's chief force lying in its dramatization of marital trauma -- but viewers will be deeply moved by the marvelous acting from the cast and the honesty of Zvyagintsev and Negin's screenplay.

The entire plot, even the concepts of marriage and divorce, constitute the MacGuffin for what Zvyagintsev is really after: dialectical power struggles. Zvyagintsev lets us see that they will continue to grow and to become more of their own persons, perhaps in spite of themselves.

Simon says Loveless (Нелюбовь) receives:

Also, see my review for Leviathan (Левиафан).