In a deserted and isolated station in the Russian arctic, two meteorologists, one a bearish ill tempered veteran, the other a flaky young intern, take samples of their radioactive surroundings. When the older man goes on a brief fishing excursion, the intern receives word through the wire that his partner's wife and son have been killed in an accident. Finding himself unable to relay the bad news, the young man soon finds himself not only the enemy of his colleague but also of the foreboding wilderness. "How I Ended This Summer" is a film with an excellent concept which opts for the slow draw approach, one which I usually admire, and isn't quite successful. In a two man show, stars Grigoriy Dobrygin and Sergey Puskepalis are ideally cast, respectively as the new age ipod sporting teenager and the grisled stereotypical Ruskie. The problems with the film lie in how drawn out everything is. The filmmakers wanted to achieve the conveyance of the tedium of life at a deserted meteorological station and unfortunately they succeeded. Still, there is much to enjoy here and the ultimate cat-and-mouse game between the stars is handled smartly and with tension.
