The award-winning movie Compartment Number 6 puts a Finnish twist on the old Strangers on a Train format.
The film comes from Finland, though it's set in Russia and opens at a farewell party in Moscow.
The glamorous Irina is seeing off her new girlfriend Laura - a Finnish visitor, who's now taking off to Murmansk in the Arctic Circle, where she plans to look at the famous rock paintings. Originally Irina was coming too until suddenly she couldn't. So Laura finds she's going solo.
On the train, at least there's one bit of good news. Irina booked them a compartment, instead of having to doss down with the plebs.
The slightly less good news is Laura finds she's sharing Compartment Number 6 with an undoubted pleb - an oafish and slightly drunk Russian called Ljoha.
At least he doesn't seem dangerous. In fact, as the journey continues, Laura starts to treat him like a clumsy puppy who hasn't been house-trained yet.
He's going to Murmansk too, where he's a builder for the enormous mining company there. And needless to say, he's never heard of any rock paintings. In fact, he can't imagine why anyone would be remotely interested in anything that old.
Laura rather condescendingly talks about how important it is one knows one's past before looking at one's future.
This would be slightly more impressive if we hadn't heard a professor at her farewell party saying exactly the same thing.
A day into the journey, Laura's had enough and wants to go back to her girlfriend. But when she rings Irina from a railway station, she can't help noticing a certain lack of enthusiasm.
You don't want to come back already? says Irina. No, of course not says Laura quickly.
So she decides to tough it out, and the trip starts to improve. She meets a nice chap - also from Finland - though that doesn't work out quite the way she was expecting.
And, to her surprise, she finds herself getting on a bit better with Ljoha.
At an overnight stopover in St Petersburg, Ljoha miraculously produces a car - lent to him by a friend, he says hastily - and a destination.
Let's go and visit an old lady friend of mine, he says, using one of the four or five Russian words I know. Babushka - grandmother.
The babushka gives Laura some significantly good advice, and the journey continues - a journey that turns out, as such journeys do, to be far more interesting than the destination.
I was reminded of trips I took at that age - heading somewhere unpredictable, meeting unlikely - and possibly dangerous - people along the way. It's a traveller's tale if you like, and it's also, against all odds, surprisingly romantic.
The two leads - Russian Yuriy Borisov and Finnish Seidi Haarla - are so real and touching that for much of the film you forget you're watching acting at all.
I loved the fact that there was so little backstory, let alone exposition. Compartment Number 6 simply draws us into a story that, despite the freezing Arctic weather, we don't want to end.
