I kept thinking of other films while I was watching Andrius Blazevicius’s poignant and sometimes dispassionate look at performative activism and interpersonal relationships.

Marija (Žygimantė Elena Jakštaitė) and Vytas (Marius Repšys) seem to be happily married, raising daughter Dovile (Amelija Adomaityte) and listening to news reports just before Russia invades the Ukraine. Vytas is a filmmaker who has become a full-time dad, scrubbing the toilets in their immaculate designer apartment, cooking great meals and struggling to maintain any of his creative pursuits.

Marija is a bit of a go-getter, the main breadwinner as she works as a branch manager of a social media company. The schism comes when she comes home one day and announces to Vytas that she wants a divorce. She is bored with his domesticity, wanting more of the excitement that their lives had before parenthood.

This feels like a gender reversal of some more established tropes or stereotypes. The housewife who becomes boring, caught up in the day-to-day routines of life and raising a child. The husband who wants more excitement, to be able to go out and party and drink and recapture some part of his youth.

When Russia invades the Ukraine, there is initially a fear that Lithuania might be next, and I must admit to expecting this couple to be forced to cohabit because of the war. That’s not quite how it plays out though.

What we get is a spotlight on well meaning, well off leftists. Vytas and Marija are both quick to side with the Ukraine, with Vytas scathing of his parents who are old school and still listen to Russian propaganda TV. They know they know better, although the parents point out that it is all propaganda.

What the war does is up end their lives based on what they feel they should be doing, morally. Should Marija quit her job as soon as the company she works for is outed as contributing financially to the Russian government? Will this give Vytas the creative spark he needs to get involved again in serious political commentary? And what of their daughter, having to navigate differing ideas and much less nuanced conversations at school?

I think we kind of know where the story is going, particularly as we are given some insight into what is actually going on with each person. It is not necessarily what they are telling each other, and there is some subtle commentary around being displaced, having to give up comforts, and what we are prepared to put up with on behalf of an ideal.

The films that kept coming to mind were quite disparate, I was reminded of Loveless (2017), ironically a Russian film but something that showed the decay of a marriage set against the backdrop of a crisis. There were also some scenes where Vytas was living in his car that reminded me of Kelly Reichardt, something about the long lens and the quiet diagetic sound.

Although the story is specific to Lithuania, it made me think of the many Ukrainian flags on people’s social media posts back a few years. Signalling support for something without much effort.

There is a sense of being somewhat at arms length from what is happening, and I’m not sure that Blazevicius is trying to lay judgement anywhere in particular. It’s a recognition perhaps that it is hard to give up comfort once we have it, unless of course we are forced to like the many families fleeing their country. Who would we be in that situation? How much chaos would we be prepared to accept into our lives to help others?