I Won’t Come Back

An almost unreasonably subdued drama, I Won’t Come Back follows Polina Pushkaruk’s Anya as she goes on the run after being falsely accused of possessing drugs – with the narrative primarily detailing the friendship (and, eventually, road trip) that ensues between Anya and a 13-year-old orphan named Kristina (Vika Lobachova). It’s an exceedingly simple story that’s told in as deliberate a fashion as one could possibly envision, as director Ilmar Raag takes a seriously meandering approach to Oleg Gaze and Yaroslava Pulinovich’s screenplay that grows more and more problematic as time progresses. It’s a shame, really, given that I Won’t Come Back is actually quite intriguing in its early stages, with star Pushkaruk delivering an impressively sympathetic turn as the movie’s troubled protagonist. (She’s so good, in fact, that the film is at its best when focused on her solo attempts at finding safety.) There’s little doubt, then, that the movie’s grip on the viewer begins to falter once Lobachova’s character is introduced, as the overly familiar dynamic between the two figures ensures that their scenes together are rarely compelling. (This is despite the periodic inclusion of admittedly engrossing sequences, including one in which Anya, after mulling it over for a few seconds, saves Kristina from the clutches of an obvious pervert.) And while the ending improves vastly on most of what came before, I Won’t Come Back ultimately feels like the sort of aimless, padded-out drama one expects to encounter at a run-of-the-mill film festival.

** out of ****