A boy vanishes into the gap left by two parents already leaving each other in Loveless, Andrey Zvyagintsev's 2017 Russian drama about a marriage ending with nobody left watching their son.
What is Loveless about?
Boris and Zhenya are in the final stretch of a bitter divorce, each already building a new life and a new relationship, and each treating their twelve-year-old son Alyosha as an obligation neither wants to keep. After overhearing his parents argue about which of them will be stuck with him, Alyosha disappears. The search that follows, run largely by volunteers rather than an indifferent police force, becomes less about finding the boy than about forcing Boris and Zhenya to look, for the first time, at what their separation actually cost. The film moves between the search itself and the quieter, colder scenes of each parent's new domestic life, letting the contrast do the work of the story rather than any single confrontation.
About the cast
Maryana Spivak plays Zhenya with a controlled coldness that never asks for sympathy, and Aleksey Rozin plays Boris as a man retreating into his new relationship rather than confronting what has happened. Matvey Novikov appears briefly as Alyosha, a presence felt mostly through his absence once the search begins. Marina Vasilyeva and Andris Keiss round out the supporting cast as the new partners each parent has already moved toward before their son disappears.
Context & significance
Loveless was directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev, the Russian filmmaker behind Leviathan, and was made as a French-Russian co-production. The film received wide international recognition on the festival circuit, including a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Zvyagintsev builds the story through long, still compositions and a search-and-rescue structure that mirrors the emotional search underneath it, using the physical landscape of a Russian winter to underline how little warmth is left in the family at its center. At just over two hours, the film takes its time rather than rushing toward resolution.
Watching Loveless on Ktime
Loveless is available to stream on K-Time with a free account login, no separate purchase required. The film includes both a Persian dub and Persian subtitles, part of a library built around a Farsi-first viewing experience for Persian-speaking audiences around the world.