A well-meaning but overstated drama set during the 1930s famine in Ukraine, Bitter Harvest focuses on talented artist Yuri (Max Irons) and his beloved Natalka (Samantha Barks). Separated when Yuri is imprisoned by Stalin’s oppressive regime (led by a malevolent Tamer Hassan as a local commissar) the couple must survive Holodomor, the death-by-starvation programme by which Stalin hoped to quell the Ukrainians.
The Cossack horseback action sequences are impressive, but there are too few shots of thundering hooves and too many scenes of stilted political discourse for this picture to take flight.
