Synopsis
While vacationing in the countryside at his childhood home, a woman suddenly reveals to her husband that she is expecting a child – but not his.
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Cast
- Konstantin LavronenkoAlex
- Aleksandr BaluevMark
- Maria BonnevieVera
- Dmitri UlyanovRobert
- Vitaly KishchenkoGerman
- Maksim ShibayevKir
- Aleksey VertkovMax
- Igor SergeevViktor
- Yekaterina KulkinaEva
- Ira GontoLiza
Recommendations
- 100
The Telegraph
The Banishment may lack the surprise factor of The Return but it's more mature and less wedded to virtuosic technique. - 90
Time
It is truly something to see; for among all the lives to be ruined it is a visual rhapsody, attentive to every nuance in the spectacular land and foliage around the family home, following the lives within as meticulously as it traces the dramatic changes in weather — from clear day to torrential showers — in one of the longest, most intricate and beautiful tracking shots in cinema. - 60
The New York Times
The first two-thirds are an extraordinary slow burn that provides ample time to admire Mr. Zvyagintsev’s talent with the wide frame. The movie is marred by an unsatisfying resolution, which has a coyness better suited to literature. - 60
Empire
It feels more like a ciné dissertation designed to showcase Zvyagintsev’s appreciation of the medium than an original piece of cinema. - 60
The Guardian
There is an outstanding film somewhere inside this sprawling mass of ideas, which might have been shaped more exactingly in the edit. - 50
Variety
The undeniably talented helmer’s sophomore feature has little of the emotional power of “The Return,” though d.p. Mikhail Krichman does stellar work and thesping is faultless. - 40
Time Out
The elements are all in place – superb acting (lead actor Konstantin Lavronenko won the best actor prize at Cannes in 2007), masterly camerawork, an ethereal score, ghostly locations – but the problem is that the story never really connects. - 30
The Hollywood Reporter
The Banishment (Izgnanie) starts off like a thriller with a car roaring into the city and a clandestine surgery by a man to remove a bullet in his brother's arm. Then, ever so slowly, the movie falls into the clutches of long, solemn stares into space, meaningful drags on cigarettes, cryptic dialogue revealing little and a tiny drama that feels old, tired and empty of real purpose.
