The central figure, Andrei, played by Pavel Derevyanko, stands as a wary, money-minded bank employee who withholds more from life than from his profits. He guards his emotions as closely as he guards his cash, dragging a broken marriage, a fraught bond with his mother, cunning schemes with friends, and a string of Tinder dates through his days. Life does not feel like a fairy tale for Andrei, yet somehow he endures. When a birthday passes, fate flips the script: he awakens to the day before and finds that every new dawn runs backward, pulling him deeper into the past rather than toward the future.
The synopsis hints at Groundhog Day vibes, but the film quickly reveals its own oddity. It resembles the Strugatsky brothers’ Monday Begins Saturday more than any Bill Murray romcom. This is not a hero trapped in one place; it is a man living his life in reverse, rewriting his own story with every cycle.
Andrei grapples with the Strugatskian idea of a countercurrent that moves backward in time. This paradox becomes the only reliable clue for a man who is both confused and hungry for a solution. The mysterious Nadia appears, a figure who may be a girl or a seer. As Andrei races through St. Petersburg seeking an exit from the looping time, Nadia emerges as a guide through the fog, urging him to notice hidden metaphors. Yet Andrei remains skeptical, dismissing mysticism and treating his strange experience as a dirty joke shared by friends, a clever prank tilted toward disbelief.
With each receding day and the calendar turning on his phone’s screensaver, Andrei begins to accept that conventional logic can no longer explain what he is experiencing. A medical visit confirms he is alive and well, that nothing sinister or terminal explains his perception, and that no one is orchestrating this ordeal. The truth seems less dramatic and more brutally personal: the events are tied to his past choices, and their consequences echo in the present.
Nevertheless, Nadia hints that escaping the loop will require repairing past mistakes. Andrei’s capacity to reason has withered, making the link between cause and effect hard to see. He clings to the belief that he did nothing wrong, a stance that builds a defensive wall around him while pushing him further back in time. Telling anyone what happened would likely be dismissed as a fantasy – a risk he is not prepared to take.
Andrei’s circle offers questionable support. A handful of women who briefly connect with him — his ex-wife Katya and his mother — remain emotionally distant for years. Other relationships drift, unfixed and unfulfilled, never becoming anchors in his life. Close friends wrestle with their own issues and question the genuineness of their bonds, a test that the countdown inevitably subjects them to.
At work, the situation worsens. Andrei’s casual disregard for his duties translates into friction with higher-ups. The boss, a former Comedy Club regular, exudes a brutal, hard-edged authority reminiscent of a tyrant from a dark workplace fantasy. Verbal barbs and relentless pressure create a toxic climate, where submission is demanded and any pushback is met with ridicule.
The only vulnerable figure appears to be Marina, a colleague with a troubled private life and a tentative stance in her own micro-drama. Yet her role in Andrei’s fate is minimal, serving mainly as a plot device that fills gaps in his imperfect world. The film hints that personal longing, not grand conspiracies, shapes Andrei’s experience, though the depth of that influence remains uneven.
Any romance or close friendship in this tale tends to become a test of reciprocity. If Andrei receives affection, the payoff often feels hollow or transactional. Friends become instruments that expose the fracture between effort and reward. The ex-wife’s storyline is present but never fully standalone, always tethered to Andrei rather than standing on its own.
Director changes leave their mark. The project carried the energy of a bold concept but sometimes staggered in its execution. The frame is populated with strong character moments, yet the pacing and clarity of the narrative occasionally falter. While the setting and performances hold promise, the surge of momentum and the sharpness of the script sometimes fail to align, leaving the viewer with a sense of missed potential.
An old line from a famous writer surfaces in the dialogue: a person becomes a magician when thinking first of others and less of himself, choosing work over entertainment. That sentiment threads through the film, suggesting that Andrei’s awakening will come only after he rethinks his relationships and the people around him. The arc is not a straightforward triumph but a circuitous journey toward understanding. The ending promises change but travels a long, winding route through an uneven screenplay that blends thriller elements with philosophical musings and a detective’s investigation. Visually and thematically, the film holds together at times, yet at others it feels like a collection of disparate pieces that never fully cohere. In the end, the story lands somewhere intriguing but imperfect, much like the Tinder matches it depicts — a tempting spark that sometimes fails to ignite a lasting flame. ”