The Betrayers

In this gripping and elegant adaptation of his own second novel, Toronto-based filmmaker and writer David Bezmozgis vividly captures a charismatic man whose overlapping personal and professional crises foreshadow the much greater ones soon to engulf the world around him.

Like the director’s 2014 literary prize-winner, The Betrayers is principally set in the sunny streets, beaches, and nightclubs of Yalta, though the events now take place just a few months before Russia’s conflict with Ukraine escalated into the large-scale war that began in February of 2022. A former Soviet dissident who’s now a prominent Israeli politician, Baruch (Michael Aronov) has come to the resort city after making the brash decision to leave his wife and escape political troubles in Jerusalem. Accompanied by Leora (Kaelen Ohm), the younger staffer who’s become his mistress, Baruch adopts a freer kind of life in Yalta, a place of great significance in his childhood but one whose lustre has faded in the years since Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea. These lovers’ idyllic retreat from their obligations and responsibilities proves to be short-lived when they encounter a man from Baruch’s past in the Soviet Union, one whose own decisions had life-changing repercussions.

By perching his characters on this historical precipice, Bezmozgis adds urgency and resonance to a deft exploration of themes of love and loyalty. Together with his exemplary cast — which also includes the great Simon McBurney as Baruch’s former friend — Bezmozgis compels viewers to consider where they may situate themselves within the gulfs that so often open up between high ideals and the compromises that may be necessary for survival.

JASON ANDERSON

Content advisory: coarse language, drug use, sexual content (innuendo, language), violence