AllMovie

A man suffering from both a serious illness and an overriding sense of sadness searches for a friend and ends up on a quest to find himself. Some of the potentially interesting elements of the story, such as the Chernobyl accident and the cultural differences between the former Soviet Union and Germany, aren't developed as much as they could have been. Furthermore, the film's leisurely pace and downbeat themes (illness, loss, despair), as well as the director's low-key approach to the material, ensure that this movie won't be on too many people's "must see" list. But if you accept the film's limitations, you may find that it does have several strong points. A story that could have easily become mawkish is relatively free of sentimentality (at least until the last part of the film); individual scenes don't have the sense of forced inevitability found in many formula Hollywood movies; and Ivan Shvedov's performance as Valeri injects some vitality into the movie. Valeri conveys just enough vulnerability to elicit people's sympathy (and get away with occasionally acting irresponsible) without letting on how much pain is really behind his charming exterior. He has a real personality instead of just seeming like a cardboard cutout. So while England! is neither groundbreaking nor spellbinding, it does make a decent effort to get the viewer emotionally involved in the life of the protagonist.