Little Vera (1988)
"Malenkaya Vera" (original title)

A story about a young woman, Vera, who is somebody, living the life of a troubled teenager in the time right before the end of the Soviet Union. She lives in a very small Russian apartment ... See full summary »

Director:

Vasili Pichul

Writer:

Mariya Khmelik

Stars:

Natalya Negoda, Andrey Sokolov, Yuriy Nazarov

7 wins & 8 nominations.

Cast

Credited cast:
Natalya Negoda	...	Vera
Andrey Sokolov	...	Sergei
Yuriy Nazarov	...	Vera's Father
Lyudmila Zaytseva	...	Vera's Mother
Aleksandr Negreba	...	Victor, Vera's Brother (as Aleksandr Alekseyev-Nyegreba)
Aleksandra Tabakova	...	Chistyakova
Andrey Fomin	...	Andrei
Aleksandr Mironov	...	Tolik
Aleksandr Lenkov	...	Mikhail Petrovich
Vadim Zakharchenko
Mariya Khmelik
Anatoliy Vasilev
Gennadi Goryachev	...	(as G. Goryachev)
Ye. Maryutina
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Max Warmflash	...	(voice)

Storyline

A story about a young woman, Vera, who is somebody, living the life of a troubled teenager in the time right before the end of the Soviet Union. She lives in a very small Russian apartment with her mother and father, however being this close to each other makes the living get rough. Their daily life is plagued with massive amounts of alcohol (mainly vodka) and when she tries to escape her home life, she meets up with a boyfriend, Sergei who then moves into her already small apartment after sleeping with her. Every day little Vera has to go through hell just to get by, which even involves her going against her own morals after her father has done something extremely wrong.

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Plot Keywords:

teenager | love | russia | student | alcoholism | 

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Genres:

Drama | Romance

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Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Country:

Soviet Union

Language:

Russian

Release Date:

28 April 1989 (USA)

Also Known As:

Little Vera

Filming Locations:

Moscow, Russia

Box Office

Gross:

$1,262,598 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Gorky Film Studios

Technical Specs

Runtime:

128 min 128 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Did You Know?

Connections

References Still of the Night (1982)

User Reviews

She may have little faith, but there's lots of faith to be had in the movie.

One of the major aspects of "Malenkaya Vera" (called "Little Vera" in English) is that it was the first movie from the Soviet Union that featured a sex scene, albeit a short one. The title is important: Vera is the Russian word for "faith", identifying that punk Vera (Natalya Negoda) has little faith in the Soviet system. And as the movie shows, there's not much faith to be had in it. The opening scene shows the bleak industrial town of Zhdanov, nearly a hell on earth. When Vera's lover Sergei (Andrey Sokolov) moves in with her family, it leads to some unexpected events.

Like in many Russian movies, people's names describe their characters. For example, there's Viktor (remember that "victor" means winner). All in all, this is a good look at the Soviet Union while it was collapsing

• and we can see why it was collapsing. Really good.