Directed by gangster movie heartthrob Sergei Bodrov Junior, this might be expected to be a shoot-'em up gangster caper movie. It isn't - in very Russian fashion, it's more about characters and issues than shooting, and while there are a couple of violent incidents, the pace is slow and the tone solemn.
The two sisters at the centre of the film - thirteen year old Sveta, poor and abandoned by her father, who longs to go off and be a sniper in the army, and spoilt eight-year old Dina, doted on by her gangster father - represent two very different aspects of modern Russia: the old, poor but moral; the young, cynical and money-obsessed. Sveta lives in a shabby home with her grandmother. Dina gets to live in a lavish apartment with their mother, and goes off to violin lessons. Not surprisingly, there's no love lost between the two.
But adversity, in the form of gang rivals on the search of some missing money and with few scruples about how to get their hands on it, throws the two together, plunging them into the Dickensian world of Russia's underground - dangerous and uncertain - and makes them value each other more than they ever have before. A couple of very naturalistic performances from the two makes this a fine, touching film.
