Elena shares a late-in-life marriage to wealthy Vladimir. Appearing more as his caretaker than his actual wife the two lead a rather boring, mundane lifestyle. But when a heart attack forces her husband to take a serious look at his will, Elena learns that she isn't the primary benefactor. When Vladimir goes a step further and refuses to help financially support her son from an earlier marriage, Elena is forced to question her loyalty to her spouse and her allegiance to her own flesh.
While a great premise keeps expectations high, director Andrei Zvyagintsev is unable to deliver on any of his promises. Elena proves to be devilishly flat and as mundane as the relationship it chronicles. The final ten minutes breathed a minute amount of life into the story, but I still couldn't wait to escape the death grip of this supposed thriller.
I can't say that the acting was necessarily bad, there just wasn't much to be done on screen. It takes nearly ten minutes before any real dialogue is spoken, and even longer before we realize just who Elena is to her poor Vladimir.
Character backstories come into play at the very last minute, often leaving us in the dark when it comes to particular conversations dealing with details of our couples marriage. The plot twist sweeps in from a mile away, and while there never seems to be any real threat to Elena, I never cared for her eventual fate. She was nothing more than a figure amongst the screen in which I had no connection with. But then again, I could have cared less about any of the characters in the film. There was simply no bonding feature that made me interested in a one of them.
