Love­less

There’s a pierc­ing moment at the begin­ning of Love­less, the fifth fea­ture from Russ­ian direc­tor Andrey Zvyag­int­sev, where the end of a mar­riage quick­ly unrav­els in a dark­ened apart­ment. As Boris and Zhenya (Alek­sey Rozin and Maryana Spi­vak) bick­er over the future of their 12-year-old son Alyosha (Matvey Novikov), a turn of the cam­era reveals the boy eaves­drop­ping just out of sight – sob­bing silent­ly as he dis­cov­ers that he’s a ​“mis­take” no one wants to be sad­dled with.

Alyosha is about to fall between the cracks of two diverg­ing lives – just not in the way his par­ents expect. While the pair are away spend­ing time with their new lovers, their son dis­ap­pears. It takes a con­cerned call from his school before they even notice. What fol­lows is not a sto­ry where despi­ca­ble char­ac­ters find redemp­tion in the face of tragedy. Instead Zvyag­int­sev offers a bru­tal indict­ment of soci­ety at large.

The search for Alyosha unfolds across a series of dark, inhos­pitable loca­tions and through peo­ple entire­ly lack­ing in empa­thy. Love­less is set in 2012 – against a back­drop of polit­i­cal tur­moil and apoc­a­lyp­tic por­tent – but its som­bre, metal­lic hues make this feel like a fore­bod­ing vision of the future: one where the only thing beneath a sur­face of con­sumerism and cor­rup­tion is self-interest.

In less capa­ble hands, this could all feel clum­sy or sneer­ing­ly cyn­i­cal. The pac­ing, cin­e­matog­ra­phy and per­for­mances, how­ev­er, coa­lesce into some­thing mag­net­ic. There may not be a sin­gle like­able char­ac­ter but Zvyag­int­sev pans out just enough to con­jure a sense of inher­it­ed malaise. (Zhenya’s own moth­er, a bit­ter recluse, tells her that she was a mis­take too.) As the sto­ry skips for­ward in time, his­to­ry begins to repeat itself – anoth­er unwant­ed child, anoth­er emp­ty rela­tion­ship – mas­ter­ful­ly round­ing out a para­ble of dis­con­nec­tion in a hyper-con­nect­ed world.