Russian housewife Elena (Nadezhda Markina) has settled into her late middle age with a routine that is stable and comfortable, if short on dignity. Her older husband, Vladimir (Andrey Smirnov), possesses a luxurious apartment and the stubborn, sanctimonious nature that is the privilege of self-made men. They sleep in separate beds on most nights, and Vladimir expects to be waited on as though he were a czar. Nonetheless, Elena doesn't seem overtly unhappy, just weary and anxious. The marriage is the second for both of them: She has an adult son, Sergei (Aleksey Rozin), an unemployed lout with a wife and two children of his own, but little motivation for anything but smoking and occupying a space on the couch. Elena has no illusions about her son, but her love for Sergei and her grandchildren is unflagging. Vladimir, meanwhile, has an adult daughter, Katerina, (Elena Lyadovadof), a wasp-tongued and embittered cynic who prefers self-gratification to the miseries of family.
Although it plainly wounds her pride to do so, Elena approaches Vladimir about assisting her older grandson, Sasha, whose poor grades are about to doom him to the army and a probable tour in South Ossetia. Elena's husband has the means to essentially purchase the boy's admittance to a university, but the miserily Vladimir delays a final decision. Unfortunately, he shortly thereafter suffers a heart attack, which proves to be both physically debilitating and emotionally clarifying. Vladimir bluntly explains to Elena that not only is his wallet closed to Sasha, but he is resolved to write a will naming the ungrateful Katerina as his primary heir, leaving his wife a mere pittance. This is the final straw for the long-suffering Elena, and as she eyes her convalescing husband she begins to hatch an simple, unthinkable plan to ensure her future and that of her son's family.
Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev is in familiar territory with Elena, as it shares with his previous work (The Return, The Banishment) both a thematic fascination with familial loyalty and a chilly, unhurried style that borders on the Siberian. Elena is the first of Zvyagintsev's features to have been scripted by the director himself, and the story takes its time unfolding, relying on the slow accrual of character and setting details to establish its simple, remorseless scenario. The performances are all excellent, particularly Markina's vital portrayal, which shifts smoothly between moments of psychological starkness and inscrutability. However, Zvyagintsev seems to regard his film not so much as story about real human beings as a vehicle for an ethical thought experiment, served up in formally minimalist wrappings complete with Philip Glass score. Even as he studs the third act of Elena with narrative kinks that complicate the moral landscape, the director seems reluctant to excavate for deeper meaning. The result is not so much a thriller as an anecdote: Here is a woman and this is what she did, with the viewer left to decide for themselves whether it was a sin or not.
