Zhanna, a disheveled and downcast alcoholic, dreams of finding a prince and starting a new life. On New Year’s Eve, while working as a cleaner at a train station, she crosses paths with Arkady, a dejected man sitting alone. In a moment of bored spontaneity, she brings him home, only to discover that Arkady does not drink—his sobriety is tightly bound to a troubled past.
The film unfolds as a stark and unvarnished portrait of a life defined by addiction, where Zhanna’s chaotic routines clash with Arkady’s quiet, enigmatic presence. Despite the mess and the self-destructive habits that mark her days, there remains in Zhanna a stubborn thread of humanity, a glimmer in her eyes that hints at the possibility of care and connection. Arkady carries himself with a restrained dignity and a stubborn refusal to surrender to alcohol, a contrast that adds a tense, intimate tension to their relationship.
As the story moves to the city of Leningrad, the layers of Arkady’s past begin to peel away. He was once a hardworking man who also wrestled with the bottle, and a violent incident led to imprisonment. The revelations sting—the fact that his wife and children have disowned him—leaving him more isolated and embittered. In the wake of this revelation, he breaks his vow to stay sober, and Zhanna responds in a deeply compassionate, almost medical way, bringing him back to her home and nursing him back to health. This act marks a turning point: Zhanna commits to trying to rebuild a life alongside him, choosing to offer support rather than retreat into despair.
Gradually, Zhanna makes concrete changes: she stops drinking, cleans up her surroundings, and extends a hand of companionship and care toward Arkady. Her determination to transform their shared existence is palpable, and she even helps him in practical ways—providing him with new clothes and a sense of normalcy. Yet the peace is fragile. A flirtatious neighbor named Sasha enters the picture, a hairdresser who embodies a spark of excitement and temptation that offers Arkady a fleeting sense of being alive outside of their small, frayed circle.
The emotional current of the film thickens as Arkady confesses a belief that he is in love with Sasha, and he proposes leaving together to start anew. Sasha dismisses his romantic gesture as naive, an act that punctures Arkady’s illusion and shatters the fragile hope that their bond might endure. When Zhanna learns of the affair, she confronts pain with a stubborn grace: she forgives him, striving to keep faith in what they once shared, even as the cracks between them widen.
Yet forgiveness does not dissolve the fundamental estrangement that has grown between them. Arkady grows increasingly abusive, asserting that they are too different and insisting that his heart belongs elsewhere. The dynamic is bleak: Zhanna clings to the possibility of love and recognition, while Arkady remains emotionally distant and indifferent to the depth of her inner strength and capacity for enduring love.
In the final, devastating act, the film strips away any last shards of illusion. Realizing that Arkady will never truly see her, or the depth of who she is, Zhanna makes a final, desperate choice. She turns on the gas and lies down beside him, sealing a fate that is as tragic as it is irrevocably earned—a quiet, harrowing ending that lingers long after the screen goes dark.
Throughout, the film constructs a stark mood of loneliness and dependency, using cold, wintry New Year’s imagery and intimate close-ups to probe themes of resilience, vulnerability, and the limits of care within a broken relationship. It is a story told with restraint and clarity, avoiding melodrama while delving into the raw ache of two people trying—and failing—to salvage a fragile connection from the ashes of addiction, disappointment, and disillusionment.
