"Little Vera"

Wow....Friday's film was very intense, that is all I have to say. "Little Vera" is a film directed by Vasili Pichul. The story takes place after the end of the Soviet Union and follows a troubled teenage girl, Vera who lives with her mother and alcoholic father. The parents always wondered why Vera cannot live up to their expectations for her to be like her older doctor brother who lives in Moscow. Anyways, Vera meets a rebel, named Sergei at a outdoor dance party. The two have a one night stand. Vera continues to date Sergei until he proposes to her. Vera accepts, and her brother, Viktor is the first to find out about this. Her brother apparently knew Viktor previously and when he finds out his little sister is engaged he disapproves.  Vera tells her parents and they disapprove at first because they want Vera to get in this situation but then they later accept their daughter's decision. Sergei then moves in with Vera and he lives in with her parents. Let's just say, things don't go as smoothly as we think it would. The parents find Sergei and Vera to be very disrespectful and ungrateful, especially from the man who is going to marry their daughter. We see Sergei eat the mother's food and have sex with Vera under the same roof.  It is a very awkward situation. The alcohol does not help either, in fact, it just makes it worse. It is so rough that it comes to a point where someone almost dies. Sergei and the father have an argument at dinner. Sergei locks the father in the bathroom. The father breaks the basin and when he is let out, he stabs Sergei. All chaos breaks out. In the end, Sergei ends up badly injured but survives, the brother goes back to Moscow, and Vera and the parents continue their very complicated, dysfunctional life.

This was a very heavy and dark film. I have to say, I was very impressed with the acting from the whole cast, everyone did a tremendous job. I actually felt like I was watching a real life dysfunctional family, since there are families that do exist in the U.S. It was interesting to see the different home life from other countries, like in Russia. It also made me sad to see how everyone was treating each other in the film, due to alcohol. This film really does prove how alchol can take over someone's life when they are addicted, and how people just make the wrong decision constantly. I felt myself really feeling for the characters, specifically the parents and the brother. For example, even though the father was an alcoholic, I could really see that he still loved his family, especially his daughter since he wanted the best for her in her education. I felt for the brother too because he was pretty much the only member in the family with a straight head. He was independent, successful, and married living his own life in Moscow but he helped out with the family a lot. I liked how towards the end of the film he helps his sister after Vera goes crazy she poisons herself with the tranquilizers and gin, he washed all of he toxins out with water. Viktor took a lot of responsibility for his family, which made him very normal. All in all, even though this was a very dramatic film, I liked how dark and realistic it was considering how there are families that have a struggling home life like how it was portrayed in the film.