By John Corrado

Today, Sony Pictures Classics is releasing the acclaimed Russian drama Leviathan on Blu-ray.  The film takes place in a small coastal town, where Kolya (Aleksey Serebryakov) and his wife Lilya (Elena Lyadova) are fighting to save their property from the corrupt mayor (Roman Madyanov), but the arrival of his lawyer (Vladimir Vdovichenkov) leads to a whole new set of troubles for the family.

Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars, and winning at the Golden Globes, Leviathan is a lengthy but thoroughly engaging and intelligently written social drama.  With a tremendous amount of rich symbolism, and superb cinematography, the narrative is almost like a tryptych, brilliantly building upon itself throughout every act of this surprising and emotional story.

The Blu-ray includes audio commentary with director Andrey Zvyagintsev and producer Alexander Rodnyansky, deleted scenes, a making of featurette, and a Q&A from TIFF.

Leviathan is 140 minutes and rated 14A.