Anticipation Prior to Release
Prior to Vernost (2019) debuting in Russian cinemas, there were discussions in the art-house community predicting this would not be another ‘run of the mill’ local drama. This was also the first feature for director Nigina Sayfullaeva (given that her first feature was the highly acclaimed Name Me (2014) produced by Sayfullaeva and her team). Vernost was backed by TNT-Premier Studios, and there were circulations of this being a quiet act of defiance for being a ‘chick flick.’
For Sayfullaeva’s sophomore effort there was heightened anticipation from art-house and festival circuits for her to return with another bold project, and for her to go even deeper on her exploration of loneliness. Non- judgement of portrayal of female desire was considered ‘dirty’ and taboo in cinema and Sayfullaeva was not expected to address this in her work.
The intrigue was heightened given that this was a ‘major studio’ release in a country where the art-house that mainstream cinema had a ‘hands off’ approach to addressing female desire and sexuality. This was also framed as a ‘conventional’ psychological drama with ‘melodramatic’ overtones. The absence of any promotional material made this even more intriguing.
What the Audience Expected
The trailers presented a slow-burn approach, focusing on scene composition and absence, suggesting a focus on emotions just out of reach. Viewers expected a more intimate contemplation of a woman suffering through a stagnant, lifeless marriage.
The anticipation went beyond mere provocation, and the desire rested on whether Sayfullaeva could render desire, jealousy, and guilt within the narratives’ emotional cores without resorting to the banality of clichés. While Evgeniya Gromova, the lead actress, was not a big name, she was recognized and her performances exhibited a promise in the raw emotionality of her theater and television work. The contrast was also striking in Aleksandr Pal, who was typecast as the more energetic and quirky character, as he was more subdued and distanced as a husband.
Expectations were for a modern Russian film with universal themes: about the routine love of two people who do not truly see one another, and how silence can scream louder than betrayal.
How the Film Actually Turned Out
The Story of Lena and Sergei
Starting with the scenes of a quiet coastal town with a still sea and a somewhat washed-out color palette, Vernost sets a still and muted tone for the calm beginnings of the story. Lena, a thirty-something gynecologist, meets the calm and self-contained protagonist. She is successful and diagnosed with married. Sergei is a local stage actor. Their together life is stable. They live a modest apartment and make small talks. Their affections are somewhat monotonous and predictable and when the result is described it is drastically muted. But, the reader learns, each of them has an is missing component.
These unmet needs are described as an intimate spark, an urgency missing and more importantly the intimacy is forgotten. Alarming stimulus of these missing needs and their rational avoidance is self-destructive. For a few sentences she will gain the self confidence to rationally face her husband and dramatically gain the internal phone. These rational avoidance behaviors of self-centric individuals will aids.
Throughout the narrative, the audience is denied the option of judging her, and this is a reflection of how Sayfullaeva’s technique gives the audience no obvious moral signposts. Instead, the attention shifts to Lena, to the stillness, to the quavering in her voice, to the way she examines herself in the mirrors, and the way she looks, interrogating, searching, and never satisfied.
Sergei, in contrast to the typical villain, is emotionally obtuse, kind and gentle. The irony in his character as a performer of passion is, of course, that it is all an act and in his off-stage life, he is detached. The devastation of Lena’s confrontation of him is in the almost total silence: there is no hysteria, no shouting, no tears. The wordlessness, the remoteness, the fact that neither character knows how to engage, is the true tragedy.
The inescapable conclusion is of the psychological absence that accompanies the physical, the promise of fidelity, the vernost, of submitting one’s body and all its promises, is a spiritual absence, a vanished presence.
Emotional and Internal Chaos
Evgeniya Gromova’s portrayal of Lena is powerful precisely for its internality. She plays a woman whose reason and emotion are in a fierce clash. Their tension is articulated, in part, through the chaos of her private life, bubbling just beneath the surface while her professional self remains composed.
Aleksandr Pal, mostly typecast as performers of the comic or eccentric celluloid characters, offers the audience a surprise with Sergei, where he chooses a more reserved approach. The portrayal of disconnection with Lena feels achingly realistic — not spiteful, but painfully human. Together, they embody a union that gradually disintegrates not through active fighting, but through a quiet apathy of inertia.
Sayfullaeva’s direction predominantly features mood: drawn-out still shots, muted color palettes, and sparse dialogue. The sea, an ever-present entity in the background, becomes a metaphor for emotional undercurrents. The surface stillness conceals a tumult, much like the sea. The film’s pacing is methodically drawn out to compel the audience acclimatize with discomfort, rather than try and find an escape.
What Worked — and What Divided Viewers
What is most refreshing about the visual language of Vernost is the simplicity. The cinematography speaks to the void that is modern existence — sterile apartments, grey cityscapes, anonymous hotel rooms. In a bold move, the camera documents Lena’s corporeality not as an object of carnal lust, but as a battleground in the war of conflicting shame and desire.
The sound design is equally purposeful. Silence is punctuated in critical moments, and the absence of music showcases that awkward, suffocating silence of two people who love each other but no longer know how to communicate.
Not everyone warmed to the film’s subtlety. An audience segment found it too clinical, too dispassionate. A few more complained that the film provided too little context around Lena’s emotional collapse and that her emotional drivers remained unclear. Yet, Sayfullaeva’s determination not to spoon-feed meaning is precisely what gives Vernost its power. It does not dictate your emotions; it keeps you in the same ambiguous position as its characters.
The Real-Life Echoes
While the film was in production, Evgeniya Gromova was in the process of establishing her presence in Russian cinema. Vernost was her breakout role, and it demonstrated her capacity to carry an entire film through emotional depth rather than spectacle. After a string of comedies, Aleksandr Pal took the risk of appearing in something this restrained. For both, the film represented the start of a new chapter in their careers, as they moved from being perceived as ‘actors with potential’ to being ‘expanding to serious actors with complexity.’
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