Leviathan

In the northern Russian coastal town of Pribrezhny live Nikolay Sergeyev, a hotheaded car mechanic; his second wife, Lilya; and his teenage son, Romka. The town's corrupt Mayor Vadim Sergeyevich is plotting legal chicanery to expropriate the beautiful seaside land on which Nikolay's house is built. The town is forcefully compensating Nikolay with a grossly undervalued sum of 649,000 roubles, and Nikolay believes the Mayor wants the land to build a villa for himself. Nikolay's old friend Dmitry Seleznyov, a sharp and successful lawyer from Moscow, arrives in town to fight the expropriation through the local court system. After the court rules in favor of the expropriation, Nikolay is arrested at the police station for shouting at the officers, and no one in government will accept Dmitry's new criminal filing against the mayor. However, Dmitry meets with the mayor, extorting him with a thick folder of evidence that incriminates him for past crimes. A shocked mayor agrees to release Nikolay and pay 3.5 million roubles. In a local hotel room, Dmitry and Lilya have an affair. The next day, the Sergeyevs and Dmitry attend the seaside birthday cookout of Nikolay's friend Ivan Stepanich, where a child runs to the group saying that he just saw Dmitry choking Lilya. Nikolay runs to find them and gunshots are heard. Afterward, Dmitry and Lilya drive back silently together, both with facial bruises. Meanwhile, Mayor Vadim Sergeyevich goes for help to one of his crony bosses, the Russian Orthodox Church bishop, who tells him that all power comes from God and encourages him to stop whining to him and solve his problems forcefully. When Dmitry meets with the mayor to finalize the payment, the mayor's thugs beat Dmitry, and the mayor carries out a mock execution, advising him to return to Moscow. A conciliatory Lilya returns home to Nikolay but is depressed. Dmitry stands sadly looking out the window of a moving train. While the family is packing to move out, Romka accidentally glimpses Nikolay and Lilya in an intimate encounter and flees the house, collapsing in tears by a whale skeleton on the shore. He returns home late, screaming that Lilya leave forever. That night Lilya is unable to sleep, and instead of going to work in the morning, she goes alone to the ocean cliff. When she turns up missing, Nikolay desperately searches for her and increases his already very heavy consumption of vodka. Her body is discovered a few days later on the shore. A mournful, drunk Nikolay asks the local Orthodox priest Father Vasily why God is doing this to him. Vasily quotes from the Biblical book of Job and counsels Nikolay that when Job accepted his fate, he was rewarded with a long and happy life. The next morning, Nikolay is arrested for murder. The investigator claims to have evidence that Nikolay had sex with Lilya, killed her with his hammer, and threw her into the sea to hide it. Evidence includes his and Lilya's own friends' testimonies about threats he made to Lilya and Dmitry when he discovered them having sex at the picnic. Nikolay is convicted and sentenced to fifteen years. With no family left, Romka reluctantly agrees to be taken in by Kolya's former friends Polivanovs, to avoid being sent to an orphanage. The Mayor receives a call informing him of Nikolay's sentence, and then gloats that he will now know to keep in his place. Sergeyev's house is torn down. The bishop gives a sermon extolling the virtues of God's truth versus the world's truth and says that good intentions do not excuse evil acts. He urges the congregation, with the mayor attending, not to act with force or cunning but to put their trust in Christ. As the mayor and other local leaders exit the church and drive away in their luxury European and Japanese cars, it is revealed to be Nikolay's old property.

Plot from Leviathan (2014 film)CC BY-SA 4.0