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I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

I expected an interesting twist, an interesting ending, an interesting story, but I found it disappointing and even disgusting. In the end, there is a scene with the woman's son spitting and drinking...... having babies and living nice after stealing someone else's money. The only good thing was, maybe, the landscapes, and the scenery. Maybe I'm from a different culture. I did not like it. A story based on how they stole a dead man's will and they succeeded.

I came to this film simply because I am learning Russian and love the music of Philip Glass, knowing nothing more about it. As it happened, the Philip Glass music consisted of a few sparse selections from his Symphony No. 3, and the Russian dialog was sparse and usually hyper-naturalistically mumbled. Of course, neither of these facts are indictments. The most striking thing about "Elena" to me is how much it revels in its own stillness and slowness. One can tell that the filmmakers very self-consciously decided to spend as much time as they do on long, quiet sequences of characters walking down the road, waking up, using various pieces of gym equipment, et cetera. This does make in interesting contrast with the murder at the center of what is really a very dark story. And in certain sequences (notably the gym) it provides a measure of suspense. But ultimately I think this pacing decision works against the film. There's not enough evidently going on while the camera lingers to make the events on screen seem worth our attention most of the time. The film could have made an interesting investigation of the philosophical question of whether Elena's murder of Vladimir was justifiable. With one lingering shot of a baby and the hospital conversation between Vladimir and his daughter, it touched on an issue it could have explored more in the question of when human reproduction itself is justifiable. But it is so dedicated, it seems, to a stylistic vision and to presenting only events and nothing that suggests analysis, that much of the potential interest it had drains away.

I think that the film deserves above an 8, which on my scale is where all films of excellence are to be found. I think the main reason it is in the 7's is because it's in the Russian style, and some Americans may not care for it. Russian films take their time. A Russian director has no hesitation setting up a shot of a character making coffee and washing the sink for a good stretch of film. Done right, the technique pulls you into close identification with the character and the environment.The acting, writing, and directing are all top notch, and the examination of many levels of Russian life are fascinating. I urge you to take a gamble on this being an "8+" film!

Andrey Zvyagintsev 's 'The Return' is my favourite film to date of the 21st century. 'Elena', a personal drama that illuminates the class structure in contemporary Russia, is not quite so powerful – it's very slow, and the ambiguity of motive that drove the earlier film is not there. And on first viewing it wasn't clear to me whether the shocking but strangely ambivalent ending is a work of genius or the sign of a film that has lost its focus. Still, the director's ability to construct haunting, unexpected images has not deserted him; some scenes reminded me of Keislowski in his Polish phase, just about the highest praise I can give.