Водитель для Веры (Driver for Vera)

Set in Moscow and Crimea, the movie “Driver for Vera” (Водитель для Веры) is the story of a young man who is a military driver for a commander in the Soviet Army and his love affair with the commander’s handicapped daughter.

(Водитель для Веры) is a fine romantic drama from director Pavel Chukhraj. Set during the summertime on a secret Soviet naval base in the Crimea of the early 1960s, the movie uses the height of the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis as the backdrop for its human drama. The heroes of this Russian movie are a Red Army general and a young soldier, and the villains are KGB agents.

The plot revolves around General Serov (Brogdan Stupka), who has a physically disabled and troubled daughter named Vera (Yelena Babenko). Vera walks with a noticeable limp but also drinks and smokes and wears glamorous clothes. When Viktor (Igor Petrenko), a young Red Army soldier, is recruited from the Kremlin Guards to work as the General’s chaffeur, he is immediately attracted to Vera, in spite of the teasing advances of the General’s pretty young maid Lida (Yekaterina Yudina).