The Russia House

The Russia House is a spy drama set during the final years of the Soviet Union, as the policy of glasnost opens the country to outside contact. Barley Blair, a British publisher of Russian literature living in Lisbon, is drawn into the world of intelligence when a manuscript by a Soviet physicist known as Dante reaches British authorities instead of him. The document argues that the Soviet Union can no longer sustain a nuclear arms race, and the intelligence services want Blair to travel to Moscow and confirm whether it is genuine. There he meets Katya Orlova, the woman who tried to pass the manuscript to him, and finds his loyalties divided between the assignment and his feelings for her.

Fred Schepisi directed the film, which came after Evil Angels in his filmography. Tom Stoppard wrote the screenplay, and the producers were Paul Maslansky, Schepisi and Nikita Mikhalkov. Sean Connery plays Blair and Michelle Pfeiffer plays Katya; the cast also includes Roy Scheider, James Fox, John Mahoney and Michael Kitchen, with sixty-two credited performers overall.

Made on a budget of about twenty-two million dollars, the film returned roughly twenty-three million worldwide, a modest result. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.1 from around twenty thousand votes, and on TMDB it also stands at 6.1, from far fewer votes. A critics' rating of 6.8 from twenty reviews places it somewhat above those audience scores.