Farewell is a strange spy thriller. This strangeness results from the fact that only the last 15 minutes of the film contain any thrills. In the last 15 minutes, the CIA, played by Willem Dafoe, steps in and gives us the big secret. This secret, however, has no impact on the rest of the movie, which is about a friendship between a worldly Russian, played by the controversial Serbian director Emir Kusturica (I still hold the opinion that Arizona Dreamis his best film), and a young French diplomat, Guillaume Canet (the director of French thriller Tell No One). The movie is based on the "true story" of a KGB spy, Vladimir Vetrov, who passed highly sensitive military materials to NATO in the early 1980s. In French intelligence, Vetrov had the code name Farewell, and the film claims that the secrets he provided the West (which was then led by Ronald Reagan) played a central role in bringing down the multi-trillion-dollar edifice called the cold war.

In the movie, the friendship between the Russian agent and the French diplomat is what everything (the spying, the secret meetings, the miniature cameras, the warning written on the bathroom glass) comes down to. The KGB agent admires the French diplomat because he admires anything that has to do with French civilization (the KGB agent is so 18th century); the French diplomat admires the KGB agent because of his admiration of all things French. As the two hang out in parks, share books, and speak in French, the world around them is becoming Americanized. In the movie's best scene, the KGB's teenage son rocks out to Queen's "We Will Rock You." He is Freddie Mercury, the wind blows through his hair, the picnic table is his stage, and the surrounding sea of tall grass is a surrounding sea of screaming fans. This is the future of Russia.

Another part of the film concerns the rocky state of the French diplomat's marriage to an uptight, cold, but pretty woman (Alexandra Maria Lara—she also plays an uptight, cold, but pretty woman in The City of Your Final Destination). The problem is simply this: She does not want a spy in her life; she wants a regular diplomat and dedicated father. It will surprise no one to learn that this is the weakest section of a generally pleasing film.

This article has been updated since its original publication.