East/West

In 1946 Stalin invites all White Russian émigrés to return and offers them citizenship. The Golovin family boards a crowded ship with other French émigrés, sharing songs and hopeful chatter about a peaceful rebirth of their homeland. The trip marks the start of a perilous new chapter as they approach the Soviet Union.

Upon docking in Odessa, officials sort the returnees into 'fit' and 'unfit' groups, signaling the fragile promise behind Stalin's welcome. A young man is shot while trying to run back to his father, underscoring the peril behind the rhetoric. The Golovins sense the danger of what awaits them in the Soviet system.

Marie is branded a spy by a Soviet official and her French passport is torn up in front of her. The family moves into a cramped communal apartment in Kyiv, where suspicion and control tighten around them. The hopeful welcome gives way to constant vigilance and fear.

An elderly housekeeper who speaks French befriends Marie but is quickly denounced and taken away, foreshadowing the danger around them. Sasha, the housekeeper's grandson, arrives and loses his grandmother's room to others, prompting Marie to invite him to share the Golovins' space. Quiet acts of mercy become quiet acts of resistance.

Marie yearns to return to France and pressures Soviet authorities to repatriate her, risking further trouble for the family. She also reaches out to the visiting French actress Gabrielle, hoping for an external lifeline. The tension between home and safety grows heavier with each attempt.

Alexei publicly aligns with the party as a public health official, while Marie drifts toward quieter, covert actions. She helps Sasha train to regain his spot on the swimming team, seeing sport as a potential escape route. She also takes a job ironing costumes for the military choir in Kyiv.

Marie and Alexei's relationship deteriorates after he publicly thanks the Soviet government, a gesture she perceives as betrayal. He admits to sleeping with a neighbor, Olga, when Marie grew distant, and she throws him out. He moves into Olga's room, widening the distance between them.

Sasha wins the trials and is selected for the European championships in Vienna. After the selection, he spends the night with Marie, a closeness that leads to trouble when her letters to France are found in his bags. The coach warns Marie to keep her distance.

While Sasha trains at a camp by the Black Sea, he arranges to be smuggled out of the USSR and Marie provides the money for the plan. Marie arrives in the port city with the military choir, ready to help execute the escape to the West. The scheme shifts from possibility to peril.

The ship captain initially resists the escape plan, but Sasha undertakes the dangerous voyage anyway. Marie is brutally interrogated by the same KGB official she first met, revealing the depth of the state's control. A French magazine later confirms Sasha's successful escape to the West, and Marie is jailed for six years.

Marie is released after six years and is reunited with her now-teenage son and her husband, who remains by her side. The reconciliation rekindles a fragile hope, with Alexei insisting that he still loves her despite everything. They attempt to rebuild their lives amid ongoing repression.

Two years after the reunion, the family travels on a delegation to Sofia, Bulgaria, where Alexei reveals that he arranged Marie's escape by writing to the actress Gabrielle. Marie and her son then escape with Gabrielle to the French embassy, seeking sanctuary in the West. The act marks a turning point in their struggle for freedom.

Marie and her son manage to reach the French embassy, but Alexei is arrested for complicity and sent to be a medic in a Gulag on Sakhalin. The family's escape does not guarantee safety for all, and the cost of resistance becomes clear. The separation foreshadows a long, uncertain exile.

With the advent of glasnost in the Soviet Union, Alexei eventually returns to France in 1987, closing the long odyssey and allowing the family some measure of closure. The film ends on a note of cautious reconciliation and the enduring price paid for the pursuit of freedom. The era's changes finally bring a semblance of resolution after decades of hardship.