Malenkaya Vera (1988)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Vasili Pichul

Writer:

Mariya Khmelik (writer)

Release Date:

28 April 1989 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A story about a young woman, Vera, who is somebody, living the life of a troubled teenager in the time right before the end of the Soviet Union...

Plot Keywords:

Teenager | Russian | Russia | Moscow | Social Drift

Awards:

6 wins & 8 nominations

Cast

Natalya Negoda	...	Vera
Andrei Sokolov	...	Sergei
Yuri Nazarov	...	Vera's Father
Lyudmila Zajtseva	...	Vera's Mother
Aleksandr Negreba	...	Victor, Vera's Brother (as Aleksandr Alekseyev-Nyegreba)
Aleksandra Tabakova	...	Chistyakova
Andrei Fomin	...	Andrei
Aleksandr Mironov	...	Tolik
Aleksandr Lenkov	...	Mikhail Petrovich
Vadim Zakharchenko
Mariya Khmelik
Anatoli Vasilyev
Gennadi Goryachev		(as G. Goryachev)
Ye. Maryutina
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Max Warmflash	...	(voice)

Also Known As:

Маленькая Вера (Soviet Union: Russian title)
Little Vera (USA)

Runtime:

Argentina:115 min | USA:110 min | West Germany:128 min (Berlin Film Festival)

Country:

Soviet Union

Language:

Russian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:14 | Argentina:16 | Chile:18 | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | USA:Unrated | West Germany:16 | Australia:M

Filming Locations:

Moscow, Russia

Company:

Gorky Film Studios

Movie Connections:

References Still of the Night (1982)

Deep Family Drama

In Russia, the ordinary teenager Vera (Natalya Negoda) lives a leisured life with her drunkard father and her simpleton mother, without working and waiting for the calling for a technical course of telephone operator. Her brother Victor (Aleksandr Negreba) lives in Moscow with the family of his own and occasionally visits his dysfunctional family and Vera, being always motive for arguing. When Vera meets the student of university Sergei (Andrei Sokolov), they fall in love for each other and decide to get married. Sergei moves to Vera's house, but lives in conflict with her father. This relationship leads the family to a tragedy.

I have just seen "Malenkaya Vera", and I liked a lot this deep family drama. I am not familiarized with the life style in the former URSS, but there are some unusual behaviors that I found very interesting. The first one, when Victor tells Vera that she was conceived not because her parents wanted to have her, but because they wanted to move to a larger apartment. Another one, when the family goes to the beach in a truck. Many difficulties of Vera's family and their friends, the repression in the park and other situations pictured in the movie are common in Third World countries. This low budget movie is very well-directed, and the story is very profound and real. The cast has great performances and the actress Natalya Negoda is very beautiful. In the cover of the Brazilian VHS, released by Sagres distributor, there is information that Natalya Negoda was the centerfold of Playboy magazine. I am not sure how precise are the subtitles in Portuguese, since many long sentences spoken in Russian are limited to short translation in few words. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Pequena Vera" ("The Little Vera")