- Philip is very successful. Everything in his life happens according to his plan. He is a brilliant lawyer, winning all hopeless cases thanks to his informal connections with supreme authorities. He is also happy in his private life: his virtuous wife and two adopted twin siblings love and admire him. One day, that harmony crumbles. A force major arises on his way to the perfect future. Suddenly, his children are found to have a severe genetic disease that they inherited from one of their biological parents. It means they both will soon become disabled. What will he do? Will he accept this circumstance and bury his plans for a perfect life. Or, will he defy this destiny and castle the pieces on the chessboard to reverse the game's course in his favor? How many figures will he sacrifice before he realizes he himself is a pawn in someone's higher-level game?—Tatiana Fedorovskaya
- Highway. Night. A young man Adam drives a fancy car. He accelerates; the speedometer shows 200 km/h. The car hits a man changing his car's wheel at the side of the road. Adam leaves the scene of the accident. Philip, a famous and successful lawyer, passes a pleasant weekend with his family. He brings his wife Anna and his children to the Aquarium to see the white whales' show. After that they go together at the fish restaurant. In the middle of the meal Philip receives a call from Aslan, high-ranking official from the North Caucasus. Philip has to interrupt his family lunch for Anna's and children's disappointment to get Adam out from the police office and to entrust him to his uncle - Aslan. Effortlessly Philip obtains Adam's release on his own recognizance. Philip hurries home. There is a very important event set up in their big and splendid country house - a photo shoot for the Anna's book cover. Especially for this a little symbolic ceremony is organized, the family will plant two trees in honor of their children - Nikita and Vera. On his way home Philip gets into the flower market and buys two saplings of red maples. Philip meets a very strange person there - the maples seller whose speech sounds more like a religious sermon. His pavilion itself reminds of a big marine animal's skeleton. Philip arrives at home. Everybody heads to him joyfully - children, Anna, nanny, dogs, publisher and photographer. Nikita announces to his dad that he has already dug the hole for his sapling and now he helps Vera with hers. The whole family poses for photos next to the newly planted maples. Anna discusses the author's note for her book about adoption with the publisher. This book is Anna's intimate revelation telling how they - she and Philip - adopted two children, it tells about a very important step in her life. She wants to share this «act of humanity» with readers. Anna finds this text too high-flown and takes one day to rewrite it. Before go to sleep Philip reveals to Anna the reason of his urgent departure from the restaurant - he has a new difficult case, a murder, a fatally struck pedestrian. The next morning begins with a daily ritual: Philip helps Vera to put on the tights before her classical dance class. Then he leaves for an appointment with a high-ranking member of Prosecution Office, Kuznetsov - Philip's informal and helpful acquaintance, to discuss Adam's case. Kuznetsov greets Philip with an ax in his hand, dressed in vintage sportswear with "Dynamo" team logo - chopping wood is a kind of Russian-style fitness. Kuznetsov agrees to assist Philip in this legal case. Philip appears in the court and delivers a defense speech on the deprivation of parental authority of a homosexual couple. His brilliant speech is full of convincing arguments and reinforced by personal experience of bringing up adopted children. He wins the trial. Philip picks Vera up after her dance class. He promises to make a gift to the dance school - an old "Bechstein" piano that now only collects dust at his mother's place. Later on Philip finds Aslan in his nightclub in order to agree on the amount of a bribe capable to guarantee a positive outcome of his nephew's trial. Aslan accepts the offer. By the end of his meeting with Aslan Philip takes an unexpected call from Anna and rushes to the hospital: during the swimming lesson Nikita had an epileptic seizure. At the hospital doctor explains to Philip and Anna that the reason of Nikita's attack could be a serious genetic disease. The doctor points out numerous tumors on the child's brain scan - one of them has probably caused the recent crisis. Philip calms Anna down promising to find the best specialist in this disease. The next day Philip pays a visit to his mother, Ekaterina, a woman with a strong character, who displays the first signs of dementia. He tries to share with her his concerns about Nikita's health problems, but she openly ignores him - she rushes into the kitchen to scold her nurse Galina for not being capable to store the food in the fridge properly. Having failed to find any mother's support, Philip takes the garbage bag and leaves. Philip injures his finger with a fish bone while trying to put the garbage bag into the garbage bin in the stairwell. At home Philip distracts himself with his favorite ritual: waxing his considerable fancy shoe collection in his dressing room. He talks to Anna through the closed door. Both parents hope that Nikita's provisional diagnosis won't be confirmed. Anna begs Philip to mobilize all his medical contacts. The next morning Philip unofficially meets again the prosecutor Kuznetsov who advises him to negotiate the settlement with the victim's widow. Philip arrives in a poor suburb of Moscow where the victim's widow Nadejda lives. He tries to convince her to accept the money that Adam's family offers. He attempts to touch her feelings, appeals for her mercy by drawing a portrait of a young man who made a mistake but who repents sincerely. Philip implores her not to destroy Adam's life. The widow stays firm. She gets into the adjoining room, where she starts arguing with her old mother. Philip hears their conversation and discovers that this very morning Adam came here to force Nadejda to drop the charges against him by threatening her children. Philip leaves the apartment. Once outside he calls Adam. The loud lounge music in the background makes Philip understand that Adam is in Aslan's nightclub right now. Philip hits the road and finds Adam carelessly having fun in the nightclub. Philip throws him outside, yells at him for his threats to Nadejda and brings him home by force. There is a sad and heavy atmosphere in Philip's house: Nikita is on a drip surrounded by the nurse and his nanny. Anna is in front of her laptop choosing her book's cover picture from the recent photo shoot. Philip takes it out on Anna, blaming him for not knowing how to store cheese in the fridge properly. Later, in bed, Anna shares her impression that I.V. therapy helps Nikita. It's morning. The whole family is in the kitchen. Philip and Nikita prepare together some fruit smoothie in a blender. Nikita drops some strawberries on the floor and tries to pick them up. Suddenly, Philip grabs brutally the child's hand and, irritated, shouts at him. Nikita is stunned by this unusual violence of his father. Philip realizes that he has overreacted and turns this situation into a joke. When the children leave together watering their maples in the yard, Philip says to Anna: "He doesn't love me". Philip and Anna are in the orphanage where they adopted Nikita and Vera nine months ago. The director of the orphanage, Valentin, is completely confused, tries to justify himself: he had no idea about Nikita's genetic disease, whose deceased parents were healthy and normal people. Philip rudely interrupts Valentin and promises him big problems if Nikita's diagnosis is confirmed. Anna is shocked by Philip's behavior revealing the hidden facets of his personality. Philip and Anna get into the ambulance, which is actually their friend's Arkady personal vehicle. Arkady is an owner of a medical center. Arkady uses this ambulance to avoid traffic jams in Moscow, but its interior is expensive and luxurious. In Arkady's medical center a video conference with American and German specialists is organized. Their conclusion is like a bolt from the blue for the adoptive parents: not only Nikita's diagnosis is confirmed, Vera as well has the same incurable genetic disease. There is no possible cure; the both children will soon become disabled. After the conference Arkady invites Philip into his office for a private conversation. A few moments later Philip, furious, runs out the office insulting Arkady. The next morning begins with a traditional family breakfast. Philip's growing irritation becomes obvious. Philip is stuck in the elevator with an old piano promised to the dance school and two movers in his mother's house. Without paying any attention to Philip's growing claustrophobia and panic attacks, neither to movers' presence, his mother criticizes him for marrying an infertile woman and adopting orphans instead of conceiving his own heirs in order to continue their "pure and noble" line. Philip returns home late in the evening but hesitates to come inside - he waits till children go to sleep. Approaching to the swimming pool Philip discovers his entire shoe collection on the bottom of the pool - children were playing "naval battle". Anna and the nanny fish the shoes out with hand nets. Philip receives an early morning call from the medical archive which makes him extremely nervous. He leaves the house in a rush refusing to bring Anna with him. Once in the archive Philip gets the documents that literally shock him. A few hours later Philip is in his office. Enraged, he angrily changes his clothes soiled with oatmeal. Next to him, Valentin, the director of the orphanage, sits on the sofa, frightened, his hand on his heart, watching a video on Philip's iPhone. On the screen a mad woman spits oatmeal in the phone's camera. That is a biological mother of Nikita and Vera, who has transmitted this fatal genetic disease to her children. Valintin with his back to the wall tries to justify himself and promises to furious Philip to figure this problem out as soon as possible. Philip becomes more and more distant from children at home. The next day, Philip is in Arkady's medical center, the nurse cleans a wound on his inflamed finger and takes out a fish bone's fragment. Arkady repeats his attempt to persuade Philip to return the children sentenced to infirmity back to the orphanage, just like defective goods. This time Philip listens silently. Philip enters a small convenience store where Nadejda works. Embarrassed, she gives him a piece of paper with a number on it - an amount of settlement that she decides to accept. Philip hires a professional hacker from an underground web agency, called Halogen, to erase from the Internet all the information about his family, especially photos. That same evening all copies of Anna's long-awaited book about adoption are loaded into a truck. The truck arrives on a wasteland where all the books are sprayed with gasoline and burned down. Fire flames light up truck driver's face - it's Philip. Philip parks his car in front of one of the Moscow's center bookstores, where Anna finishes last preparations for her book's release scheduled for tomorrow. He takes her home and on the way announces his decision to send the children back to the orphanage. Anna is deeply shocked by this cruel decision but Philip stays firm. At home, the quarrel between spouses breaks out and ends with mutual accusations and a fight. During this quarrel Anna learns that Philip has a biological son who lives in the United States. Anna bursts into tears and Philip comforts her and promises that they will not abandon these children; they will put money in their account until their death. As for them, they will adopt new children but only after their meticulous health check-up. Philip leaves Anna sobbing disconsolately, goes outside with a bottle of whiskey, takes a sip and disappears into the darkness. Philip, drunk, walks through the village till he finds himself on a building site. Not far from it is a construction trailer for workers. Dim light comes from its small windows. Philip takes a look inside and sees Kyrgyz workers having their dinner. They invite Philip to share their humble meal. Philip continues to get drunk and starts to philosophize about God and faith - but in vain, he does not find any understanding among Kyrgyz workers barely speaking Russian. Philip gets out the trailer but, tangled in a wire mesh, falls into a ditch. The workers rush for his rescue and take him out of a ditch. The Kyrgyz foreman takes him to a nearby church, "to his God." Philip, completely drunk, approaches the village church, knocks the guard down, gets inside and locks the door behind him. He turns on his iPhone light and shines it around the walls. Philip delivers a long speech addressing Heavens. He scolds the Almighty accusing him of all his misfortunes. The police breaks into the church. The next day Valentin and Nina, a high-ranking official of Children's Services, arrive at Philip's office. Nina proposes Philip to replace his children with new ones without anyone knowing. Nikita and Vera will be sent to a distant orphanage and Philip will receive another pair of absolutely healthy children looking just like the previous ones. Philip accompanies Anna to the airport's VIP zone. Anna says goodbye coldly and walk away towards the departure gate. Philip organizes a farewell party for children who are totally unaware of their future destiny: they go together to the Aquarium, then have a real feast in a cafe. While the children excitedly eat delicacies, Philip notices through the cafe's window Valentin and Nina who come for children and discreetly goes outside. After sending away from the house all children's toys and belongings Philip comes out into the garden and pulls out the ground two maples saplings. Philip is in the funeral hall. Nadejda, her mother and children bury the man killed on the highway. After the ceremony Philip drinks a glass of vodka with Nadejda and her mother for the eternal peace for the dead man's soul. A little drunk, Philip wanders through Moscow city center, suddenly his eyes fall on an expensive pair of fancy shoes in a shop window. Later at home, Philip is very anxious about emptiness and silence surrounding him. Even the dog's food is left untouched - both dogs lie on children's beds in their empty rooms and ignore Philip's commands. It sends Philip into a rage. Wearing underpants and a new pair of shoes, he throws a wild party only for himself. He dances violently to deafening music. In the morning Philip drives to work. Passing by the garbage bins he notices the Kyrgyz workers' children cheerfully trying on shriveled men's shoes from his drown shoe collection. Philip's car is stuck in a giant Moscow's traffic jam on the overpass. Philip rehearses his speech for Adam's trial. On his left he sees a truck transporting cows to a meat factory. One of these cows sticks her head out from the barred window of the cattle truck and stares at Philip. They engage in rather particular dialogue: the cow constantly moos and Philip, unable to concentrate, begins to moo in response. At some moment Philip loses control, jumps out of his car, opens the truck's doors and chases all the cows away, into the wild. Only one cow stays in the truck, the one who "spoke" to Philip. It refuses to go outside despite her savior's efforts. Philip bursts into tears because of his own helplessness. Court's back room. Philip sits on a sofa and talks to the judge. He looks detached, his coat is unbuttoned, and his shoes are covered with manure. The judge is astonished by Philip's neglected appearance - it's strange for a man who always looks impeccable. The judge takes a guess - maybe he concerns about the trial outcome - but there is no need to worry - everything is settled. Later, the verdict of the court is announced. Adam gets probation, he is released. Adam's family is triumphant. Nadejda and her mother thank Philip for his help. Philip is alone in his empty house. He calls his biological son - a 13 years old teenager living in Boston. The boy does not recognize Philip who hastily interrupts his call. The next day Philip comes to see his mother. Ekaterina's dementia becomes more and more obvious - she's delirious - she assures Philip that a carpenter took her old piano to fabricate a cross for his son. In the morning Philip prepares to go to work. He searches for his wallet, but instead he finds in his pocket a fragment of a reliquary key from the church, which he tried to open in his search of the Truth. Philip's yard. Philip digs, hole after hole. He is breathing heavily, with a whistle, sweating all over, hands in bloody blisters. Camera goes up slowly: the whole yard is densely planted in orderly rows with mathematical precision with young saplings of red maples... It starts snowing.
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