FILM REVIEW: Loveless (2017)

Directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev

* * * 1/2

I was about eight or nine when my parents divorced. Don’t worry, I’m not crying for sympathy: it is way in the past and I’m not angry or bitter about the situation or anybody involved. Sometimes life just happens like that, and I can accept that, but I can’t deny that it was one of the absolute toughest things I’ve ever went through in my life. Perhaps this is why Loveless was such an arresting film for me. Even if I hadn’t though, I believe it would have had the same impact. I wish I could make some sort of joke or jovial quip about just how appropriate the title is, but I just can’t bring myself to: Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Oscar-nominated film is an unbearably cold and ultimately devastating trial through the dissolution of marriage (one that probably shouldn’t have happened in the first place).

Alexey’s (Matvey Novikov) parents – mother Zhenya (Maryana Spivak) and father Boris (Aleksey Rozin) – are going through a nasty divorce. Cramped inside a microscopic apartment, he can hear every argument, which is a shamefully regular occurrence (Alexey must cry himself to sleep every night). To Zhenya and Boris, as much as they hate each other’s guts, it is what it is, and they move about their daily lives. The film goes on and on, depicting the daily lives of Zhenya and Boris. One day, Boris is at work when Zehnya unexpectedly gives him a call. Alexey has gone missing.

They contact the police, but are referred to a local organization that searches for missing children (the police would take too much time with all the bureaucracy involved). A search party is gathered, and off they go to find the missing child in a procedural drama. Zhenya and Boris participate in the search, but even with the welfare of their own child on the line, they can’t put their contempt aside.

This is one of the most shameful and despicable couple of people I’ve seen in a movie. First, there’s Zhenya, who not only vocalizes her contempt to her husband, but also to her own child right in his face. She’s always glued to her iPhone, always somewhat detached from the harsh reality that is the real world. Boris is the opposite; always involved with bleak current events, from political turmoil to superstitious paranoia (the film takes place in late 2012, if you remember all the Mayan calendar scares). At least Boris is less despicable than Zhenya: at one point, the two are separated. Boris assists the search party while Zhenya calls up her rich boyfriend and stays the night in his cushy loft, but this is never enough to make up for his behavior.

One of the keys to the film’s grip factor is Mikhail Krichman’s cinematography, who has clearly taken many a lesson from Andrei Tarkovsky and Michelangelo Antonioni – regarding the latter, Loveless had countless parallels to Antonioni’s seminal L’avventura. Loveless is a brutally cold movie. From everything you’ve already read, you could probably imagine how chilly it is on a thematic level, but the film itself is freezing. It is set during the wintertime, but not with pearly-white snow to brighten things up. This is one of those gray winters, and the cinematography is masterful in capturing such a specific kind of winter.

A theme I sense in Loveless is history’s inevitable tendency to repeat itself. Right from the beginning, just by looking at Alexey’s face, we can sense how long this struggle has gone on. The theme goes further, though. Take Boris and Zhenya’s new partners, for instance. Everything we learn about these characters and seeing the climate of their current relationships, we can see that there is no hope for their futures: the same thing is bound to happen (which we can witness happening in the film’s coda). Back to Krichman; his shot composition only emphasizes this with these long telephoto shots that make the environments seem endless.

Loveless is a terrific film, but it doesn’t go without something to be desired, mainly with its unbalanced concern for its characters. I won’t be surprised if Zvyagintsev is accused of some sort of contempt for women. I don’t believe this is the case, but Zhenya is such an awful character, and Loveless never lets you forget what a bitch she is. There is a moment where she tells her boyfriend about her past – this clearly says something about who she is, and should have given me some sympathy for the character, which it did…but only for a brief moment. It’s especially frustrating when we turn to Boris. Granted, not exactly an upstanding fellow either, but the film clearly has a bit more concern and sympathy for him (until the end, that is), and I find the lack of balanced portrayal a bit unfair. More balance would have made an already compelling film even more so, and definitely would have gained the film a 4-star rating from me. But, this is not the case, and such is life, I suppose.

I read a lot about how Loveless is saying something (or trying to) about the current sociological environment of contemporary Russia. I can’t comment on this, as I’m not a scholar on the subject of Russia. That said, I don’t believe I need to know what’s going on over there. Loveless knows that truly great drama must be concerned with its human inhabitants before the big picture issues – after all, it’s the people that make up the big picture. Loveless, as heavy and emotionally draining as it is, is a riveting and arresting trip to the movies. It may not be pleasant, but I guarantee you’ll never forget it. I am sometimes cynical about the overly-prevalent “think about the children” sentiment (best, albeit excessively, ranted against by George Carlin), but when it comes to something like divorce, I can’t think of anybody who should take more priority than the children.