It says something about film marketing that the makers of this nice little film felt it necessary to give featured billing to Willem Dafoe and Diane Kruger, who might be recognizable to American film goers but are certainly not the film's stars. Kruger appears on screen briefly, while Dafoe has a minor and totally unnecessary role. The real stars are Emir Kusturica as Gregoriev, a high ranking Russian intelligence agent who is determined to expose his country's spy network in an effort to bring down the Brezhnev regime, and Guilliaume Canet as a young French businessman serving as Gregoriev's unwilling courier. Credit must also go to Alexandra Maria Lara, the French businessman's beautiful young wife who fears for her family's safety and cannot get a truthful word out of her husband. Kusturica is excellent, Canet is competent and Lara is very good. This is "based on a true story," a phrase that always leaves me wondering where fact expires and invention begins. But it is very well done. The Russian is caught and the young French couple escape by driving from Moscow to the Finnish border in a snow storm. Of some interest are the actors playing Ronald Reagan, Francois Mitterrand and Gorbachev, each of whom figures prominently in the story. They're a pretty stiff bunch.
Review of Farewell
