Movie Review

PG-13

GENRE

Biography/History, Christian, Drama

CAST

Elizabeth Tabish as Violetta Petrosyan; Patrick Sabongui as Ivan Petrosyan; Elizabeth Mitchell as Carrie Whitlow; Ana Ularu as Kate Owens; Stelio Savante as Duane; Florin Penisoara as Dimitri; Adrian Titieni as Vova; Michael Paul Chan as The Judge

DIRECTOR

Mark Freiburger

DISTRIBUTOR

Fandango

IN THEATERS

January 26, 2025

REVIEWER

Paul Asay

Movie Review

For Violetta Petrosyan, the Soviet Union had always been home.

She’d been born in Azerbaijan (then part of the U.S.S.R.). Her own two daughters were born there, too. Her husband, Ivan, works as a Soviet rocket scientist. She herself is a respected school administrator in Baku, Azerbaijan, and a proud member of the Communist Party.

But ethnically, she’s Armenian. And in the eyes of many, that makes her an outsider.

Nothing new there, either. She’d been used to the occasional side-eye, the derogatory remark, the infrequent burst of ethnic tension. As long as Moscow was in charge, those issues felt minor.

But in 1988, Moscow’s power wanes. The Soviet Union is fraying at its edges. And many former countries—or would-be countries—now strain at the seams, reaching for independence.

And in Azerbaijan, Violetta and her family don’t feel at home anymore—all because they’re Armenian.

Bricks shatter the windows of Armenian businesses. People carry signs promising death to Armenians. The school closes its doors to the Petrosyan girls—a sympathetic teacher telling Violetta that they’re simply not safe at the school anymore.

But it’s only when the shooting begins—executions of Armenians right in the streets—that the Petrosyans flee, running straight into Russia proper. There they hope for another chance at home.

But they find a cold welcome in Volvograd, Russia. Housing is dismal. Jobs are scarce—at least for Armenians. The only hint of friendliness they find is inside a ramshackle church, and that’s hardly a suitable refuge for the secular Petrosyans.

Sure, Violetta and Ivan have a place to stay in Volvograd. The apartment comes with walls, a roof—even heat sometimes. And if they need a bathroom, well, it’s just down the hall.

But a home? They’re still looking.

Positive Elements

Work for Armenian rocket scientists seems to be extraordinarily limited in Volvograd. So Ivan, without a hint of grumbling, offers his help as a handyman instead. “I will do anything to take care of my family,” he says, and he proves it. But caring for that family means more than just providing some necessary income: Ivan does his best to encourage Violetta and the girls, Julia and Olga, as they struggle to stay fed and warm.

It’s not easy. Violetta shows the pain of leaving Azerbaijan more than Ivan: She’s keenly aware of how unfair their plight is. But she, too, is a deeply conscientious and protective parent.

But while the Petrosyans may often feel all alone, they do find some help, as we’ll see in the section below.

Spiritual Elements

Violetta’s mother (who moved to Russia shortly before Violetta) introduces the family to a protestant congregation in Volvograd—one that’s largely supported by another church in West Virginia. Neither Ivan nor Violetta are particularly interested in what the church offers at first. But Violetta notices that her own mother has changed since attending.

“She had this sense of peace, despite our circumstances,” Violetta says later. “And I suppose I was looking for that, too.” Violetta talks at length about the idea of forgiving people—one that she increasingly tries to put into practice.

Violetta’s converts, but Ivan is skeptical. So he urges her to not put “your hope in some other cause that is going to let you down again.” When Violetta and the girls attend church, he waits outside—kiddingly telling his daughters that “Unlike the angels in the Bible, your papa is real and right here in front of you.”

But the church’s pastor, Vova, proves to be a winsome source of hope for Ivan. Vova protects Ivan from a couple of bigoted policemen. When Vova suggests that Ivan should join the rest of his family in church and Ivan says no, the pastor comes up with another idea for him: serving as the church’s part-time handyman.

The Petrosyans also meet Duane, a congregant from that West Virginia church who seems to shuttle between Russia and the States. When Violetta asks why, Duane unpacks his sad backstory, and how his own pastor showed him just what “a new life could look like.” He says that he’s “meant” to serve God in this way—and he encourages Violetta and Ivan to come to West Virginia to share their story.

That, ultimately, is where the Petrosyans seek their new, earthly home. And most of the movie is told in flashback, as Ivan and Violetta tell their stories in an American courtroom in a quest for asylum.

During the hearings, an attorney asks Violetta whether communism was once a “religion” to her, suggesting that her conversion to both capitalism and Christianity might be a cynically “convenient” way to gain permanent residency in the United States. Violetta isn’t having it. “I did not have a choice of what I was born into,” she says. “But I chose Jesus. And I chose Christianity, and I choose this country.”

We hear a reference to Romans 15. When Ivan accepts the handyman job at the church and asks Vovo about why he’s so kind to he and his family, Vova says, “Jesus was a refugee, too. And He could also fix a lot of things.” We hear about the symbolism in Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son.

Sexual & Romantic Content

Violetta and Patrick kiss a couple of times.

Violent Content

A couple of Armenians are dragged into the streets as a horrified Ivan watches from the window. The sound of gunshots crashes through the night—the implication being that both Armenians were murdered.

Thugs search for the Petrosyans, as well, who are hiding in their apartment. A kindly neighbor lies for them, telling the would-be killers that the family went to Moscow the week before. “When they return, so will we,” we hear the killers say.

The Petrosyans are safer in Volvograd, but peril still follows them. Three Russians threaten Ivan on an otherwise empty bus. Patrick brandishes a hammer at the trio until they leave. He’s threatened by a particularly bigoted policeman, too, as is Ivan’s youngest daughter, Olga.

An Armenian businessman sweeps up glass after someone throws a brick through his shop window. Protesters carry signs threatening “Death to Armenians.”

Crude or Profane Language

None.

Drug and Alcohol Content

A birthday party involves wine and a toast.

Other Noteworthy Elements

Ivan runs to the bathroom once or twice during an American asylum hearing—apparently because he feels the need to vomit.

The racism and bigotry we see here is inescapable—both for characters in Between Borders and those who watch the film. That bigotry is life-threatening in the Petrosyans’ hometown of Baku, Azerbaijan. In Volvograd, the slights are less perilous, but painful all the same.

An abusive police officer goads Ivan: “You’re not white. You’re not Black. And you’re not so brown, either. So, what are you?” And when Ivan says he’s Armenian, the officer tells him, “There’s too many of you stinking up our city.” He exacts bribes from Ivan and Vova; when his extra-legal thievery deprives Olga of a gift and Olga protests, the policeman tells Patrick, “Shut her up, or I will.”

When Violetta finally gets a job interview, she’s told bluntly that she’d never get the job if circumstances weren’t so desperate. “But just because you are going to work here doesn’t mean you are one of us,” the Russian school administrator tells her. And, in one of the movie’s most painful moments, she makes Violetta repeat the phrase, “I am quieter than water, and lower than grass.”

When recalling these difficult moments during an asylum hearing in the United States, Ivan must run to the bathroom once or twice—apparently because he needs to vomit.

We hear about someone having several miscarriages before dying of cancer. A character admits that he’s done “many things I am very ashamed of.” We learn that the Petrosyans overstayed their visa to America.

Conclusion

Between Borders is based on a true story. Ivan and Violetta Petrosyan are real people—and what they went through is all too real, too.

Tensions between Azerbaijanis and Armenians are, as Violetta says, nothing new. But that longstanding historical conflict took a frightening turn in the late 1980s and 1990, as the old Soviet Union crumbled. In January of 1990, a seven-day pogrom—essentially an ethnically charged riot—broke out in the Petrosyans’ hometown of Baku, leading to arson, assault and murder. Most Armenians fled the city; those that remained went into hiding.

Even now, the violence has continued. Armenians and Azerbaijanis have fought for decades over a region called Nagorno-Karabakh. And many say that predominantly Islamic Azerbaijanis had recently engaged in ethnic cleansing—trying to wipe out the region’s predominantly Christian Armenians.

But Between Borders isn’t just about one family caught in the crossfire of a terrible conflict or their subsequent search for a new life. It makes us mindful of today’s immigrants and refugees—most of whom are dealing with discrimination and bigotry, all of whom are just trying to find a home. And given the movie’s Christian underpinnings, it should remind us that the Bible frequently commends us to be kind to the strangers in our midst.

“Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow,” we read in Deuteronomy 27:19. “And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’”

Between Borders is a resonant story strengthened by some moving performances, most especially those of Patrick Sabongui as Ivan and Elizabeth Tabish—best known as Mary Magdalene in The Chosen—as Violetta. (I talk with Tabish on the Jan. 23 episode of The Plugged In Show.) And while the context of the film can be unsettling, the content we see onscreen is restrained. Peril is everywhere, but actual violence is mostly kept off camera.

The biggest caution we should offer surrounds the movie’s inescapable, sometimes horrific examples of bigotry and discrimination. You can’t close your eyes to those vile acts any more than the Petrosyans can. And really, without that prejudice, Between Borders would have no reason to be. The slurs and slights and threats of violence form the bedrock on which the movie’s themes of hope and home are built. But still, those who are sensitive to such scenes should be wary.

The year 2024 was a great one for Christian movies, offering plenty of variety and ever-stronger craftsmanship. It’s too early to say whether 2025 will mark another step forward. But Between Borders gives Christian reviewers like me reasons for optimism.