Autumn

Plot

In mid-October, Ilya and Sasha, who pretend to be husband and wife, arrive from Leningrad to spend a week in a remote northern village. Ilya, a doctor, is unhappily married and childless, his marriage teetering on collapse. Sasha, three years younger, is nearly thirty and recently divorced after her husband’s refusal to have children led her to an abortion. Childhood friends who once considered marriage, they reconnect years later, realizing their feelings for each other have quietly endured. They spend the week fishing, talking, and sharing stories with their hosts, Edik and Dusya, who reveal their own marital struggles.

Ilya faces a deep inner conflict, knowing he should tell his wife he’s leaving her but unable to bring himself to do so. One day, he even calls her from a nearby village but says nothing. Sasha, sensing his hesitation, asks him not to leave her, yet doubts he will stay. When the week ends, they return to the city as the season’s first snow falls. Sasha, unable to bear her solitude, visits her friend Margot, whose marriage, though unconventional, is a source of comfort. Restless, she returns to her room late at night to find Ilya waiting for her, a silent sign that he may have finally chosen to be with her.

Cast

Natalya Rudnaya as Sacha

Leonid Kulagin as Ilya

Natalya Gundareva as Dusya

Aleksandr Fatyushin as Eduard

Lyudmila Maksakova as Margot

Armen Dzhigarkhanyan as Viktor Skobkin

Igor Kashintsev as a visitor to a pub

Yuriy Kuzmenkov as police sergeant major

Vladimir Lysenkov as a visitor to a pub

Zoya Mokeyeva as Tanya, daughter of Dusya and Eduard