The Return

I really liked today's film. I have never watched a movie with such an unpredictable plot. For starters, the title, "The Return," gave away the surprise of what the movie was about. Obviously, something from the past was about to return to the present. In this case, it was Andrey and Ivan's father. Despite the cinematography being amazing, I was confused with a few aspects about the film.

 The first thing that caught my attention was why the father came back in the first place. In the film, he says it was because the boys' mother said she wanted him around again. However, this seemed a little fishy to me. When Andrey and Ivan arrived at their home to discover their father was there, the mother seemed very nervous anxious with his arrival. She was outside on the porch smoking a cigarette. This is a common thing for people to do when they feel uncomfortable in certain situations because the nicotine calms the nerves. If the mother was expecting the biological father of her children, I would think she would have reacted to the situation differently.

Another aspect that was unsettling was the way the father went about things throughout the film. He seemed like a man with a suspicious past and was hiding something from his family. This could explain why he disappeared for 12 years without a trace. This is the reason why I feel like he showed up out of nowhere to be with his family. Something may have gone wrong in his current life and he felt like his only option was to go back to his old life. What is completely unfair to Andrey and Ivan is the way he treats them upon his arrival. He acts as if he had been there all along and he feels there is no other way to react to his sudden appearance than to accept him. Personally, I felt this was completely bogus. I also didn't like the way he treated his sons. I could tell they were used to their mother's parenting style and not their father's. He was very ruthless in the way he conducted Andrey and Ivan.

What surprised me the most was the way the film ended. I knew that the father was "caring" for his sons in his own way, but I didn't see his untimely death coming at all. This is the plot twist that made the film very interesting. I thought, "what now?" I doubt that I'm far off from what the boys were thinking as well. While I enjoyed watching this film, it left so many questions unanswered. For example, where did the father come from and why did he return to his family after so many years? What was in the package the father picked up? What ended up happening to Andrey and Ivan after they could't return their father's body home? In a way, the father's body sinking to the bottom of the lake has ironic symbolism. He threatened to the boys that he might not come back for another 12 years after their fishing trip. Well, now he's never coming back because he's dead. This is a bittersweet end to the movie. While the boys ended up losing their father, they gained their old lives back. Overall, I enjoyed the film and I am looking forward to the movie tomorrow.