Loveless | Bleak marital thriller provides a chilling portrait of Putin’s Russia

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Loveless Alyosha Matvey Novikov
(Image credit: The 61st BFI London Film Festiva)

Loveless Alyosha Matvey Novikov

A Missing Child. A Marriage Destroyed. A Country in Crisis.

In the throes of a bitter divorce, Moscow couple Zhenya (Maryana Spivak) and Boris (Aleksey Rozin) are consumed by mutual rancour. So consumed, in fact, they take a while to notice when their unhappy 12-year-old son Alyosha (Matvey Novikov) goes missing.

This is another bleak and chilling portrait of Putin’s Russia from Andrey Zvyagintsev, director of 2014’s superb Leviathan. Like its predecessor, Loveless is brilliantly crafted and and allegorically resonant. And emotionally bruising to watch. Also like its predecessor, it was nominated for a foreign-language Oscar and won Best Film at the London Film Festival.

Certificate 15. Runtime 127 mins. Director Andrey Zvyagintsev

Loveless available on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital from Altitude.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS2DHWymMJM

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Jason Best
Jason Best

A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.