- Film Review
- Reviewed By David Parkinson
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4 out of 5
Having impressed in Sergei Bodrov Jr's directorial debut, Sisters, teenager Oksana Akinishina excels in this sobering study of life on the bottom rung. As the eponymous Lilya, she gives a believable performance of naive vulnerability, whether being cheeky to the Russian mother who abandons her to emigrate to the United States, exchanging insults with the classmates who think she's turned to prostitution, swooning over the stranger who promises her the Moon or enduring the exploitation of the grotesques who populate her nightmare existence in Malmo. But it's in the company of the 14-year-old Volodya (Artiom Bogucharskij), a substance-abusing runaway from Lilya's tenement estate, that the film finds the flicker of human warmth that makes its uncompromising realism all the more tragic.
Plot Summary
Drama starring Oksana Akinishina. Abandoned by her mother, Russian teenager Lilya is easily seduced by a stranger's promise of a new start in Sweden. But the brutal reality of her situation soon becomes horribly apparent.
Cast and crew
Cast
- Lilya
- Oksana Akinishina
- Volodya
- Artiom Bogucharskij
- Natasha
- Elina Benenson
- Aunt Anna
- Lilia Sinkarjova
- Andrei
- Pavel Ponomarjov
- Witek
- Tomas Neumann
- Lilya's mother
- Ljubov Agapova
- Sergei
- Tonu Kark
Crew
- Director
- Lukas Moodysson
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