AllMovie

Julie Bertucelli's directorial debut, Since Otar Left, is a superb family drama, intelligent and bittersweet, that examines how a man's death affects the lives of three Georgian women. Esther Gorintin delivers a wonderfully engaging performance as the tough old matriarch Eka with Nino Khomassouridze as her resentfully caring daughter, Marina, and Dinara Droukarova as her granddaughter, Ada, straining at the responsibility of being the peacemaker and holding the family together. Each of the three actresses delivers a detailed and believable performance, bringing Bertucelli's finely wrought characterizations to life. The film opens with a wonderful bit of business that drolly distills these women to their essence. At a café, Eka carefully picks out the slice of cake she wants. She sits between her daughter and granddaughter. While Ada happily sips a glass of tea, Marina absently nibbles at the edges of her mother's cake, until the silent Eka's outraged glares cause Marina to slam her fork down in exasperation. This is our perfectly performed introduction to these characters and this relationship, and so it's not surprising that, by the end of the film, we care about them and feel that we know them. There's a dark, dry wit that permeates the movie, as each of the women faces her own struggle with hard-bitten life in the former Soviet Union. The complexities of these women's relationships are thrown into relief by the death of Otar, Marina's brother. With this moving and funny film, Bertucelli, whose background is in documentaries, demonstrates a rare gift for visual storytelling and sharp writing that allows room for characters to surprise themselves and the audience.