Ya ne vernus

The Eastern European movie Ya ne vernus (2014) was shown in the U.S. with the title "I Won't Come Back." It was directed by Ilmar Raag. I said the movie was "Eastern European" because the language is Russian, the director is Estonian, and the film includes scenes set in St. Petersburg, and--at least in the script--in Kazakhstan. (I wouldn't recognize any of the geographic locations anyway. Sometimes one of the protagonists--Anya--doesn't know exactly where she is either.)

Watching this film is a unique experience. It never telegraphs where it's going next, and, usually, it goes in a direction that you don't expect.

This movie is really hard to review without giving the plot away. We learn right in the beginning that Anya (played by Polina Pushkaruk) was raised in a orphanage. (We're never told about the conditions in the orphanage.) We first meet Anya when she's receiving a gold medal at graduation.

In the next scene, Anya is a graduate student, giving a lecture. Her supervisor arrives after class, and we learn that she and he are lovers, although he's married, and has a child. Still within the first 15 minutes of the movie, Anya is on the run, pretending to be much younger than she is so that she can stay at a shelter for homeless youth. It's there that she meets young Kristina--played superbly by Vika Lobachova--and that's where the story really begins.

It would have been relatively easy to swing into a traditional road/buddy movie style at this point, and that might have turned into an interesting film. That's not what happens in this movie.

Try to see this movie so that you can learn where director Raag goes with it. It's not an easy ride, but it's an interesting one. We saw this film in the wonderful Dryden Theatre at George Eastman House in Rochester, NY. If you're lucky, you'll find the movie at a similarly excellent venue. If not, it will work almost as well on the small screen.