''Farewell'' (; literally ''The Farewell Affair'') is a 2009 French espionage

thriller film Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre. ...

directed by Christian Carion, starring Guillaume Canet and Emir Kusturica. The film is loosely based on the actions of the high-ranking KGB official, Vladimir Vetrov. It was released in the United States in June 2010. It was adapted from the book ''Bonjour Farewell: La vérité sur la taupe française du KGB'' (1997) by Serguei Kostine. The movie was filmed in Ukraine and Finland because Russia refused to provide a permit for filming in Moscow. A

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news item also stated that the Russian government "dissuaded Russian movie actor Sergei Makovetsky and Russian producer and director Nikita Mikhalkov from participating in the film" (according to the director).

Plot

In the early 1980s, a high-ranking

KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...

analyst, Sergei Grigoriev, disillusioned with the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

regime, decides to pass Soviet secrets, including a list of their spies, to the government of France, then under the newly elected President

François Mitterrand François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand (26 October 19168 January 1996) was a French politician and statesman who served as President of France from 1981 to 1995, the longest holder of that position in the history of France. As a former First ...

, a

Socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

in coalition with the Communist Party. Grigoriev (code-named ''Farewell'' by the French intelligence service) hopes to force change in the Soviet Union by revealing their extensive network of spies trying to acquire scientific, technical and industrial information from the West. He uses Pierre Froment, a naïve French engineer based in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

, as his unlikely intermediary. After the first transfer of information, Pierre confides in his wife Jessica, who is adamant about his stopping this activity in order to safeguard their family. Grigoriev persuades Pierre to continue without telling Jessica. He will accept neither money nor

defection In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state in exchange for allegiance to another, changing sides in a way which is considered illegitimate by the first state. More broadly, defection involves abandoning a person, ca ...

as a reward, but sometimes requests small gifts from Pierre's trips to France, such as a Sony Walkman and

Queen Queen most commonly refers to: * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a kingdom * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen (band), a British rock band Queen or QUEEN may also refer to: Monarchy * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Q ...

cassette tapes for his son, some

cognac Cognac ( , also , ) is a variety of brandy named after the Communes of France, commune of Cognac, France. It is produced in the surrounding wine-growing region in the Departments of France, departments of Charente and Charente-Maritime. Cogn ...

, or books of French poetry. As Farewell's prodigious output blossoms, the French are bewildered by the sheer scale and yield of top Western technology transferred covertly to the Soviets. Under suspicion that he is not a trustworthy ally, Mitterrand personally hands U.S. President

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...

a dossier of invaluable Farewell data during the Ottawa G7 summit. The Americans are astounded with it and other information provided by Farewell, culminating in the full " List X" of Soviet spies within the highest echelons of the Western scientific and industrial apparatus. They embark on an ambitious plan to feed the Soviets erroneous or defective data; shortly afterwards, the network of Soviet technology spies in the West is rolled up, and Reagan announces the "Star Wars" antimissile shield project. Deprived of hi-tech information from the West, and with their own laboratories falling behind, the Soviet leadership panics. Seeing this desperate impasse for what it is,

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...

, then an upwards-mobile party official, starts preparing the reform policies he is to pursue in the future. Grigoriev's superior, a

double agent In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country, whose primary purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organi ...

for the CIA, is directed by them to sacrifice Grigoriev and save the Froments, all unbeknownst to the French. Grigoriev, under arrest and KGB interrogation, plays dumb to give the Froments time to escape. They cover their tracks and flee by car to the Finnish border. While in

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

for debriefing, Pierre pleads with the CIA Director to save Grigoriev, praising his integrity and selflessness. The director refuses as a policy principle, having brought the other agent to the West. Grigoriev is granted his request of execution by a marksman on the jetty of the snow-clad lake he loves. Pierre is later offered a company job in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

Cast

* Emir Kusturica as Sergei Grigoriev (the character based on Vetrov) * Guillaume Canet as Pierre Froment, an engineer working in the Moscow branch of French electronics conglomerate Thomson-CSF * Alexandra Maria Lara as Jessica Froment, Pierre's wife * Willem Dafoe as Feeney, Director of the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

* Fred Ward as U.S. President

* Philippe Magnan as President

of France * Niels Arestrup as Vallier, Director of the DST * David Soul as Hutton, aide to President Reagan * Ingeborga Dapkunaite as Natasha, Grigoriev's wife * Dina Korzun as Alina, a colleague and mistress that Grigoriev is having an affair with * Yevgeni Vasilyevich Kharlanov as Igor, the Grigorievs' rebellious son * Christian Sandström as

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

agent * Diane Kruger, Benno Fürmann, Gary Lewis and Alex Ferns, amongst others, have cameos.

Reception

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, the film holds an approval rating of 86% based on 77 reviews, with an average rating of 7.06/10. On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 74 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

References

External links

*
Screendaily.com review

The interviews with Director and actors
{{Clint Mansell 2009 films 2000s French-language films 2000s English-language films 2000s Russian-language films Films directed by Christian Carion Films shot in Ukraine Films shot in Finland French spy thriller films 2000s spy thriller films Cold War films Films set in the 1980s Cultural depictions of Ronald Reagan Cultural depictions of Mikhail Gorbachev Films set in the Soviet Union Films set in Moscow Films scored by Clint Mansell France 2 Cinéma films Canal+ films Films about the Central Intelligence Agency 2000s French films English-language spy thriller films

Plot

Cast

Reception

See also

Further reading

References

External links