Die Stiefmutter

The fact that Tatyana Doronina has the lead in this movie may lead the casual observer to assume that this a borderline schlocky tearjerker, which was more or less her stock in trade. A summary of the main plot may encourage that assumption, too - Sasha Olevantseva, a housewife on a collective farm, has just moved with her husband and two children into a brand new apartment, which if you lived in Russia in the fifties was a dream come true. A letter comes from a village in the far north, announcing that her husband had fathered a child with another woman, and the child's mother has died. Will you take the child, or turn her over to an orphanage? They adopt the child, which is when the drama starts.

But the story is not so simple. The movie is in fact a very nuanced performance with a variety of sub-themes floating around in the background. On the one hand, the village believes that Sasha is simple-minded for even agreeing to take the child - even her bear of a husband begins to think so, and her own witch of a mother considers it to be a confirmation of Sasha's stupidity and encourages Sasha's own son to pick on the girl. On the other hand, the village officials suspect that Sasha, like a typical stepmother, must be abusing the child. And the child herself is a cipher - totally unresponsive while Sasha does her best to make her feel loved, despite the opposition she personally has to face on all sides. A good movie. Unfortunately, English subs don't seem to be available for the movie any more.