Advertisement
Become a member of the Big Issue community
JOIN
Film

Loveless, review – an ominous portrait of neglect with precious little hope

A divorcing couple argue over custody of their young son in this grim Russian drama, the problem is neither of them wants him. The unsparing pessimism is hard going

Loveless is set in Moscow, at the approach of winter in 2012. A snippet from a radio broadcast reveals there’s much talk of a looming apocalypse, foretold hundreds of years back by the Mayan civilisation. Remember that? Well, the predicted doomsday never materialised. But from the unforgivingly bleak picture of the world that Andrey Zvyaginstev’s film presents you’d be forgiven for wondering what was worth saving.

Armageddon notwithstanding, the film is stalked by a terrible sense of catastrophe. This is an impressive piece of cinema that combines muscular, visual storytelling with powerful performances: but it’s strong stuff, grim, wrenching and darkly unsettling.

It begins at the end of something: a marriage in its exhausting terminal stages. Zhenya (Maryana Spivak) is selling the Moscow apartment she shares with her 12-year-old son Alyosha, and when buyers come to inspect the property they ask why she’s so keen to be rid of it. “Divorce,” she explains, with relief, and the reason for that relief is evident later on, when her soon-to-be-ex-husband Boris (Aleksey Rosin) visits. The fight that quickly ensues is a horrifying spectacle, staged in relentless long takes by Zvyaginstev and performed with raw honesty, applied with jagged aggression by each party, intended to hurt.

The fight that quickly ensues is a horrifying spectacle, staged in relentless long takes by Zvyaginstev and performed with raw honesty

What they’re bickering about is especially unedifying: the custody of young Alyosha. Zhenya and Boris are now with new lovers, and neither wants responsibility for their son. The argument represents a kind of nadir of parental care, and its only redeeming feature is that they’ve at least waited for Alyosha to go to bed before talking about him like this.

Except, unknown to his parents (and shockingly revealed to us), the young boy got up and has overheard everything. Naturally he’s crushed. It’s perhaps no surprise then that a few days later Alyosha disappears.

Advertisement
Advertisement

Loveless charts the search for the missing kid, a search that sees Zhenya and Boris reluctantly thrown together. This is a bitterly unhappy marriage, marked by self-pity, regret and contempt, and so consumed are husband and wife in attacking one another they fail to notice the hurt inflicted on Alyosha. In fact, Zhenya only realises belatedly that her son is not at home because she’s spent the previous day with her new lover.

The cops are called, and even then Alyosha’s welfare barely registers as a priority. He’s probably run away, the detective says as almost a cavalier aside; he’ll come home once the winter nights draw in.

Loveless is an excoriating portrait of neglect, both at a parental and societal level. A group of volunteers spring into action to help look for Alyosha (with a practiced attitude that suggests these kind of missing cases aren’t so rare in contemporary Moscow). Unfurling with a forensic eye for detail, the film is horribly compelling, and its procedural thrills are accompanied by an inexorable dread. The search covers the woods near his family home but stops at the river. Why, Boris asks a volunteer. “We don’t look for bodies,” comes the reply.

Loveless is brilliantly accomplished and yet I found its unsparing pessimism hard going. The film’s despair feels a little manufactured: the subtleties of human behaviour are sacrificed to justify a forbiddingly hopeless worldview. Still, it’s a bold film from Zvyaginstev, who will make a return trip (after 2014’s Leviathan) to this year’s Oscars, where he’s nominated for Best Foreign Language Film.

Loveless is in cinemas from February 9

Advertisement

Become a Big Issue member

3.8 million people in the UK live in extreme poverty. Turn your anger into action - become a Big Issue member and give us the power to take poverty to zero.

Recommended for you

View all
Joker: Folie à Deux says nothing meaningful about living with mental illness
Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck (aka Joker) and Lady Gaga as Harley ‘Lee’ Quinn in Folie à Deux
Film

Joker: Folie à Deux says nothing meaningful about living with mental illness

Actor Adam Pearson: 'I wake up every morning, let the universe kick my arse and then carry on'
Adam Pearson in A Different Man
Letter To My Younger Self

Actor Adam Pearson: 'I wake up every morning, let the universe kick my arse and then carry on'

Will Ferrell takes a crash course in trans advocacy in new Netflix doc Will & Harper
Will Ferrell and Harper Steele
Film

Will Ferrell takes a crash course in trans advocacy in new Netflix doc Will & Harper

My Old Ass review – a sweet and cathartic coming-of-ages movie with a twist
Elliott (Maisy Stella, left) with her 39-year-old self (Aubrey Plaza).
Film

My Old Ass review – a sweet and cathartic coming-of-ages movie with a twist

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know
4.

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know