Sasha Greenberg (Sam Robards) returns to his homeland of Russia after living 17 years in the United States. He is an accomplished astrophysicist who is scheduled to give the keynote address at a meeting of many of his former colleagues. Sasha, who is separated from his American wife Helen (Ally Sheedy), has mixed feelings about being in Moscow, a city that he loves but that is filled with many good and bad memories.
When he left Russia for America, he was viewed as a traitor by other scientists including Professor Gross (F. Murray Abraham), his highly intellectual mentor who had defected to the USSR from America to help the Soviets build nuclear weapons. Gross relishes the boldness and daring of those who stand out from the crowd and are not afraid to follow what he calls "sacred curiosity."
At middle age, Sasha is troubled about his on-again and off-again relationship with his wife who made it possible for him to come to the United States and work for the military establishment. He has great appeal to a handful of other women, including his lover Jill (Jicky Schnee), an American filmmaker in Moscow to pick up footage for her documentary on the global destruction of the earth; Natasha (Oksana Stashenko), a Russian astrophysicist he spent a night with years ago; and her rebellious teenage daughter Elena (Maria Andreeva), who may or may not be his daughter.
Russian writer and director Slava Tsukerman has fashioned a nuanced and fascinating film out of Sasha's journey home in 1992, a period known as perestroika or restructuring. The new Russia angers many who are against the corruption and black market, the influence of western decadence in the form of rock 'n' roll, and the rationing of vodka. They are uneasy with the tolerance that enables people for the first time in their lives to say what they feel without the threat of prison. Sasha is reminded of the virulent anti-Semitism he experienced as a boy and as an aspiring scientist. He feels like everything has plunged into chaos — both his private life and the rampant destruction of the world by human beings. In his keynote speech, he shares his feelings and then goes on to talk about his favorite topic: the structural coherence of the universe.
