Despite the fact that it was a genocide that claimed millions of lives, the Holodomor is not particularly well known. Bitter Harvest is not the film to bring attention to it.

This is a story of villainous oppression, unfortunately told with oppressive earnestness.

It's not Zhivago. The big picture is drawn a little too hastily for that. But it is a rousing tale with political pertinence, given the current state of relations between Russia and the Ukraine.

It's a bad sign when even the prayers in this movie are crappy.