Loveless
A missing child. A marriage destroyed. A country in crisis.
Production
Revenue
$3 917 010
Director
Scenario
Composer
Producer
Aleksander Rodnyansky
Actors
Maryana Spivak
Zhenya
Aleksey Rozin
Boris
Matvey Novikov
Alyosha
Alexey Fateev
Coordinator
Marina Vasilyeva
Masha
Andris Keišs
Anton
Natalya Potapova
Zhenya's Mother
Sergey Borisov
Police Officer
Short description
Loveless centres on Zhenya and Boris, a Moscow couple whose marriage has collapsed into bitterness. Both have already moved on emotionally, each with a new partner, and they are eager to settle the divorce and sell the apartment they still share. Their twelve-year-old son Alyosha sits at the edge of this conflict, unnoticed by parents absorbed in their own grievances. After one of their arguments, the boy disappears.
Andrey Zvyagintsev directed and co-wrote the film with Oleg Negin. It is the fourth of the director's features, following The Return, The Banishment and Leviathan, and it precedes Minotaur. Maryana Spivak and Aleksey Rozin play Zhenya and Boris, with Matvey Novikov as Alyosha and Marina Vasilyeva and Andris Keišs among the supporting cast.
The film was released in 2017 and runs 122 minutes, a drama produced across Russia, Germany, Belgium and France. On IMDb it holds 7.6/10 from roughly 37,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.3/10 from 839 votes, while a film critics' rating stands at 8.3/10 from 182 reviews, higher than either audience score. Its worldwide box office came to about 4 million USD, modest for an art-house release of this scale.
What's left behind the scenes
- Over 250 children from Moscow and St. Petersburg were auditioned in the search for a boy to play Alyosha. Ultimately, seven were selected to audition with the director. Among them were Matvey Novikov, who eventually played Alyosha, and Artem Zhigulin, who played the role of Alyosha’s friend and classmate.
- Employees of the Lisa Alert search and rescue team acted as consultants on the project regarding the organization and conduct of search operations, were present on the set, and also provided some equipment for filming – navigation tools and a mobile search and rescue headquarters. In exchange for this assistance, after filming was completed, the film crew donated searchers' uniforms to the organization: warm clothing, special footwear, orange vests, and jackets.
- This is the first film that Andrei Zvyagintsev and editor Anna Mass were forced to begin editing even before the end of filming.
- During filming, Barbara Shmykova, who played the searcher Lena, was seven months pregnant. Her sizable belly had to be concealed under a costume. Despite her condition, Barbara stoically coped with difficult nighttime shoots in sub-zero temperatures and worked on par with all the other members of the film crew.
- The idea for the film originated in 2015 when producer Alexander Rodnyansky and director Andrey Zvyagintsev discussed ideas for their next project. Rodnyansky recalled Ingmar Bergman's "Scenes from a Marriage" and brought it to Zvyagintsev's attention – and thus, this film became one of the sources of inspiration.
- Boris drives a KIA Ceed, but a Ford Mondeo was used for filming inside the car, as additional space was needed to accommodate the camera and the camera crew.
- During the filming of the scene in the morgue, no one on the film crew could hold back tears.
- Alexey Fateev auditioned for the role of Boris, but after the first rehearsal, the director suggested he consider another role.
- In the scene where Zhenya gets a haircut, the camera simulates shooting through a mirror. In reality, the camera was positioned opposite the actresses and filmed through a semi-transparent glass. Aprons were made with the name of the beauty salon KALI YOGA printed in reverse. The actors also switched their watches and rings to the other hands.
- The filming crew had only three attempts to shoot the scene where search parties walk along the fence near the rotating giant dish of the radio telescope. At the command of location manager Alexander Voronov, the telescope staff started it moving, which lasted only a few minutes. During this time, the crew managed to shoot only three takes, after which the telescope's engine required a 20-minute technical break.
- The walls of the sales department where Boris works are decorated with reproductions of frescoes by Dionysius from the Ferapontov Monastery (15th century). All actors in the mass scenes portraying office employees were given wedding rings. This is all connected to the corporate policy of the Orthodox enthusiast who heads Boris, nicknamed 'Boroda' (Beard), who is frequently mentioned by the film's characters.
- The real-life Lisa Alert search and rescue team served as the prototype for the 'Vera' search and rescue squad involved in the search for the missing Alyosha. The filmmakers decided not to use the organization's name or logo in the film.
- A few weeks before filming started, Maryana Spivak created a special Instagram profile on behalf of her character, Zhenya Sleptsova, and methodically filled it with photos that can be seen on the mobile phone screen during the scene of the first nighttime conversation between Zhenya and Boris.
- Among the DVDs on the shelf near the television in Anton's apartment, you can spot a disc with Andrei Zvyagintsev's film “Elena”.
- Andrei Zvyagintsev envisioned Boris as clean-shaven. The character only grew a beard in the epilogue, that is, two years after the main events. Alexei Rozin came to the makeup test with his own beard, which convinced the director to reconsider his vision of the character. In the epilogue, the makeup artists only needed to add a little more facial hair to Alexei Rozin's face.
- All the actors who played the roles of search and rescue team members, including Alexey Fateev (coordinator) and Varvara Shmykova (Lena), participated incognito in real search and rescue operations of the Lisa Alert team several weeks before the start of filming.
- The role of Boris's 2-year-old son was played by Grisha Kuznetsov, the son of Maryana Spivak.
- Maryana Spivak is the granddaughter of the famous actress Zhanna Prokhorenko. Her portraits can be seen in the interior of the Sleptsovs' living room in the scene when Zhenya heads to the bedroom after a nighttime quarrel with Boris.
- The film was shot in 58 filming days. A total of 275 shots were filmed.
- In late November 2016, a decision was made to suspend filming. Reshoots were carried out in the spring, from March 25 to April 9, 2017.
- Sergey Borisov, who played the role of the operative officer, actually worked as a traffic police inspector for 17 years.
- The opening scene with students running out of school was filmed on November 5, 2016. According to the plot, the scene takes place on an autumn day – October 9, 2012, but due to the snowfall, the schoolyard looked truly wintry. For three hours, the crew cleared snow from the asphalt, lawn, tree branches, and the school's canopy. By the time filming began, daylight was rapidly dwindling, resulting in only 4 takes being filmed. The episode was reshot on April 9, 2017. This version ultimately made it into the final cut, but the version of the film presented to the selection committee of the Cannes Film Festival included a take filmed in the fall.
- During the scenes filmed in the office, a new Google company logo, which was implemented in 2015, and Windows 10, released in the same year, can be seen on the monitor, while the film's events take place in 2012.
- The director wanted professional actors to play the roles of the searchers. To this end, a separate casting was organized, in which over 200 actors participated, from whom 30 were selected.
- The episode with the homeroom teacher erasing the blackboard was filmed on November 6, 2016, specifically to introduce snow into the plot. The snow falling outside the school windows was artificially sprayed by the SFX team. Subsequently, due to the impossibility of controlling natural snow, snow in a number of episodes (especially those filmed in the spring) had to be created using computer graphics.
- The search for, rehearsals with, and approval of actors took place from February to August 2016 and took a total of 7 months.
- During Boris and Zhenya's journey to Zhenya's mother's house, the song “Sleepwalking” by Bring Me The Horizon plays. The film takes place in 2012, while the song was released in 2013.
- During the night scene of Zhenya's conversation with her mother, a ginger cat peacefully sleeps in Zhenya's arms. The cat appeared in the scene by chance – it jumped onto Maryana Spivak's arms and lay there, purring, throughout all 18 takes.
- The episode in which Masha (Marina Vasilyeva) lies down in bed next to Boris, who has returned after the night search for Alyosha, was filmed in a soundstage late at night. Alexei Rozin actually fell asleep during one of the first takes and slept for several hours until the filming of the episode was completed.
- Marina Vasilyeva, who played the role of Boris's pregnant lover, was forced to wear silicone pads weighing 4.5 kg.
- By November 2015, Oleg Neguin had completed the screenplay. By this time, some locations for filming had already been found. In particular, Alyosha’s walk in the ravine (Skhodnensky Kovsh) appeared in the director’s script precisely because the main outdoor location had been approved in the autumn of 2015: the Slepцов family’s residence. By this time, the first sketches of the main film interiors were also ready: the Slepцовs’ apartment, Masha’s apartment, and Anton’s apartment.
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