Loveless (2017)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Loveless (2017) – A. Zvyagintsev

I have found Andrey Zvyagintsev’s previous films (esp. Leviathan, 2014) to be really compelling stylistically, even as they deal with complex human relations in contemporary Russia, highlighting a lot of social ills.  Perhaps they were pessimistic and bleak but often there was a streak of black humour in the darkness.  I expected something similar from Loveless, about a couple going through a bitter divorce whose son goes missing, but there is no humour here to lighten the grimness.  Yes, the cinematography and direction (lots of slow zooms) is stellar and the film is gripping in its way – especially in its second half when the focus is on finding the 12-year-old boy who has disappeared and there are no clues. But the primary protagonists, Zhenya (Maryana Spivak) and Boris (Aleksey Rozin) are anything but likeable (yet not one-dimensional either); Zvyagintsev seems to be using their selfishness to critique the growing Russian middle class, where one’s own happiness matters most and the social fabric is becoming unglued as a result.  Another thread seems to suggest that parents’ selfishness can impact their children’s subsequent behaviour, as Zhenya’s mother, angry, belligerent, paranoid, and alone, has clearly helped to create Zhenya’s own ugliness toward her child (Boris might be starting the cycle again with his new girlfriend).  The events here are truly sad, especially when the parents wish aloud that they never had their child in the first place.  And seemingly their wish comes true… to what effect?  Harrowing, ambiguous, depressing.