Optimal cinematography, great acting, especially by Charles Dance and Anthony Head, fascinating and gripping story, fine moods well captured, everything is almost perfect, so what's wrong then? It deals with events of around 1960 and 1990, during the Cold War and during the Glasnost period after the fall of the Iron Curtain, but all that seems very far away today, and the film makes an outdated impression. To make it worse, this great and very emotional love story falls into the trap of turning into a sob story. Rebecca Ferguson keeps up a stiff upper lip all the way, she doesn't lose her face but sticks to the point with admirable consistency, but Sam Reid hopelessly falls out from any credibility by over-acting and almost making a fool of himself from the beginning, so one has to wonder how Rebecca could fall in love with him. The mood is dark and very Russian all the way, the Moscow scenery is quite convincing although the film was shot in Belgrade and London studios, the musical scenes are quite genuine from the Russian joints, and formally there is nothing wrong here. Only the sentimentality feels exaggerated, over-stressed and out of place, while only Anthony Head provides some realistic counterpoise to it.