Cast of Characters:
Vera: a young woman, around age 19, caught between her loyalty to her father and to her lover
Sergei: unpredictable engineering student with whom Vera falls in love
Vera’s mother: an average downtrodden, middle-aged Soviet woman
Vera’s father: an alcoholic truck driver; self-destructive, violent, and pathetic
Victor: Vera’s successful brother, who became a doctor in Moscow and comes home as infrequently as possible; his own marriage is a failure
Lena: Vera’s best friend, single-mother, and an aspiring telephone operator

Plot Summary:
Not a complicated plot, so I will keep it simple. Vera is one confused young woman, looking for love in all the wrong places. She is on the cusp of adulthood, in part forced to grow up because of her father’s need to be mothered and her own dawning sense of self and sexuality. While she spurns the affections of one “nice” young man, she is drawn to the sexy, distant Sergei. When they decide to get married, she lies to her parents that she’s “in trouble.” Tensions between Sergei and Vera’s father reach the boiling point, leading to shocking and violent developments….

Study questions:
· Is there anything positive and/or hopeful in the entire film?
· What does the film have to say about gender relations in the late 1980s?
· What indicators did you pick up on that shed light on living conditions in the USSR during perestroika?
· How does the West peak into the lives of Vera and her friends?

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