(2007 with subtitles for Russian dialogue) This plot-driven, violent drama lacks character depth or development, directed by David Cronenberg with score by Howard Shore.

In London near Christmas at Azim's barber shop, Ekrem, a Turkish boy, slits a Russian's throat. A young girl speaking a foreign language faints in a pharmacy as she hemorrhages from placental interruption; after giving birth to a baby girl, she dies in the hospital.

A midwife nurse, Anna (Naomi Watts), brings home the girl's diary. Her uncle Stepan (Jerzy Skolimowski), a Russian immigrant who says he was with the KGB, is startled that she would steal things from dead bodies.

Anna lives with her mother Helen (Sinead Cusak); her Russian father is deceased; she suffered a miscarriage while living with a black physician. Initially Uncle Stepan refuses to help with translating Tatiana's diary, but after Anna takes a photocopy to a Russian restaurateur, Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), he reads and reveals the secrets of a fourteen-year-old Ukrainian girl lured to America with promises of a job singing in a restaurant only to find herself raped and drugged with heroin.

Semyon is the aging kingpin of a Russian mafia family, vory v zakone, along with his cruel princeling son Kirill (Vincent Cassel); their chauffeur, Kolya (Viggo Mortensen), acts as an undertaker for the body of the dead Russian, removing teeth and fingertips before dropping the corpse into the harbor. Kolya (diminutive for Nikolai), a man of mystery and ulterior motives, is the only character worth watching; Kirill commands him to ride one of the girls in Semyon's stable of whores as proof that he's not a homosexual.

In the hospital Anna names the baby Christine. Implying a threat to the baby's safety, Semyon suggests an exchange of the diary for the girl's address. Anna accompanied by her uncle and mother in a fastfood restaurant turn over the diary to Kolya, who warns Anna: "Stay away from people like me." Semyon tells Kolya to take care of Stepan since he knows too much. Kolya brings Anna the girl's family's address in Ukraine but advises her to keep the baby in London. "How can you keep doing what you're doing?" she asks him. "I'm just a driver," he answers. Ekrem and Kolya are both attacked by Chechens as the graphic violence continues.

In the end - after all the loose ends have been neatly tied together (though Kirill's character takes an unexpected turn to tenderness) - when Anna asks Kolya why he has helped her, he explains that to become king the sitting king must be deposed. Not a film I'd recommend for Christmas or any other time of the year.

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Copyright © 2007 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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