AllMovie

In this film first-time director Nikolai Skuybin tackles the differences between a fairly complacent middle class and the increasingly disaffected lower classes in Moscow. On a cold evening in the dead of winter, a social gathering in a comfortable city apartment is interrupted by an urgent knocking at the door -- a young and obviously poor woman is seeking refuge on this inhospitable evening. After the apartment owners decide to accommodate the woman, they are led on a downward spiral that takes them to the lowest echelons of society. In the end, the police come into the picture, and class divisions become more obvious. The director's subtle defense of the young people's viewpoint in the film might be weakened a little by the complexities of the plotline, otherwise, the film is an interesting sketch of new issues in Russian life at this time.