Bitter Harvest

The Holodomor—Stalin's mass starvation of the Ukrainian populace in the early 1930s, estimated to have killed as many as seven million people—serves as the backdrop for filmmaker George Mendeluk's stilted historical romance, which strives for a Doctor Zhivago vibe but falls miles short. The hero is Yuri (Max Irons), an artistically-inclined peasant in love since childhood with Natalka (Samantha Barks). After the Bolshevik revolution, he goes off to the art academy in Kiev, but winds up in jail when his modernist style conflicts with the dictates of Soviet realism. Back home, Natalka, as well as Yuri's grandfather, Ivan (Terence Stamp), falls under the malevolent rule of brutal Communist commandant Sergei (Tamer Hassan), who expropriates the locals' lush fields for collective farms and casts lustful eyes on the women. Yuri escapes from prison, returns to Natalka, and joins rebels fighting the Soviets, but the resistance is doomed to fail. Will the beleaguered couple—along with the sweet orphan boy they have adopted—make it across the border into still-free Poland? The Holodomor deserves to be remembered, but while Bitter Harvest has its heart in the right place, this feels more like a TV movie, weighed down by leaden acting and clunky dialogue. An earnest, old-fashioned melodrama that fails to do justice to the historical horrors it seeks to dramatize, this is not a necessary purchase. [Note: DVD extras include a photo gallery. Bottom line: a small extras package for a disappointing film.] (F. Swietek)