Unconvincing portrayal of the Soviet Union

The basic story is a moving one, the film never really touches you and often avoids tackling the more interesting elements.

In 1946, Alexi Golovin, Oleg Menshikov, a Russian doctor who has been living in exile in France, accepts the offer of an amnesty from the Soviet government and returns to Kiev with his French wife, Marie, Sandrine Bonnaire, and their son. From the moment they arrive they realise they`ve made a terrible mistake: in a country strictly controlled by Stalin, there`s no reconciliation, no peace. Marie is desperate to return home to France and seeks the help of a left-wing French actress, Catherine Deneuve, while befriending a young swimming champion, Sergei Bodrov Jr, who might offer another possibility of escape... I`m quite sure that many thousands of people suffered in the Soviet Union as the characters here suffer but somehow East West is seldom very convincing, especially in the pretty cliched second half. The script was co-written by Russian director SergeiBodrov, father of the talented young actor who has a key role here; and though there are some powerful scenes, and the basic story is a moving one, the film never really touches you and often avoids tackling the more interesting elements - like the motives of the French actress - in favour of a far-fetched escape from behind the iron curtain plot.