A Driver for Vera is a Ukrainian

Cinema of Ukraine

-State owned:* Dovzhenko Film Studios * Odessa Film Studio * National Cinematheque of Ukraine * Ukrtelefilm* Yalta Film Studio-Film distribution:...

-Russian

Cinema of Russia

The cinema of Russia began in the Russian Empire, widely developed under the Soviet and in the years following the fall of the Soviet system, the Russian film industry would remain internationally recognised...

 co-produced film from 2004, directed

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

 and written by Russian Pavel Chukhrai

Pavel Chukhrai

Pavel Grigorovich Chukhrai is a Russian film director, son of Grigori Chukhrai. His most successful film to date was The Thief , nominated to the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and winning the Nika Award for Best Picture and Best Directing.-References:...

. This fact led to the film being rejected as Ukraine's entry for the Foreign Film Academy Awards

Academy Awards

An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...

 category for 2005, due to a rule which states that "the submitting country must certify that creative talent of that country exercised artistic control of the film."

Plot

The plot of the film is set during the Khrushchev Thaw

Khrushchev Thaw

The Khrushchev Thaw refers to the period from the mid 1950s to the early 1960s, when repression and censorship in the Soviet Union were partially reversed and millions of Soviet political prisoners were released from Gulag labor camps, due to Nikita Khrushchev's policies of de-Stalinization and...

 in the former Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

, and concentrates on a young cadet in the Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

 named Viktor (Igor Petrenko) who becomes a chauffeur for his general (Bohdan Stupka

Bohdan Stupka

Bohdan Stupka is a popular Ukrainian actor. He was born in Kulykiv, which is in Lviv oblast , Ukraine.Stupka is recognized as the most famous living Ukrainian actor. He has played more than hundred roles in films and over fifty in theaters. Stupka has been awarded the title Artist of Ukraine and...

) and begins a relationship with the general's daughter, Vera (Alena Babenko). Viktor becomes involved in a plot by the KGB

KGB

The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...

, and a KGB agent (Andrei Panin

Andrei Panin

Andrei Vladimirovich Panin is an Nika Award-nominated Russian actor appearing in film and television, and a director.-Early life:Panin was born on May 28 1962 in Novosibirsk, Soviet Union; the son of Agnessa , and Dimitri Alexandrei Panin. Two years later the family moved to Chelyabinsk...

) pushes Viktor to spy on the general for their purposes.

Reception

The film received mixed reviews from American critics. Entertainment magazine Variety

Variety (magazine)

Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

referred to the film as "more off-putting than enthralling" and noted that while the film has been compared to the Academy Award–winning Burnt by the Sun

Burnt by the Sun

Burnt by the Sun is a 1994 film by Russian director and actor Nikita Mikhalkov. The film depicts the story of a senior Red Army officer and his family during the Great Purge of the late 1930s in the Stalinist Soviet Union...

, it lacked a main character that a viewer could identify with. Variety also commented that Viktor's personal struggles seemed "irrelevant" and criticized Petrenko's "limited emotional repertoire", as well as the poor acting of the remaining cast of characters.

See also

• Cinema of Ukraine
  Cinema of Ukraine
  -State owned:* Dovzhenko Film Studios * Odessa Film Studio * National Cinematheque of Ukraine * Ukrtelefilm* Yalta Film Studio-Film distribution:...
  
  
• List of submissions to the 77th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film