A Soviet working-class hero discovers his family revolted against his medals.
The pride of the repair plant, a striker, an order-bearer, one day suddenly inquired about his home affairs and discovered that not everything was as well as he would like it to be. His son works without having finished school. He dropped out of school a month before receiving his diploma without his parents' knowledge, he wanted to go to the nautical school. There is a huge competition. But he works without a soul, but for a check mark in the characterization. The son became a stranger to his father. In a different way alien to the father's eldest daughter, a mannequin. She loves married, dating him for two years, and he still does not want or does not want to part with his wife. Her father does not understand that she has her own life, forbids her to meet with her lover. And the youngest, not by years independent, childishly trusting and maturely reasonable tells her father his mistakes. And it is she who helps her father to understand his guilt before the family.
Acting
Kuznetsov's collapse from pride to comprehension.
Writing
The youngest daughter's devastating monologues.
Director
Konstantin Khudyakov
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Released during Brezhnev's stagnation, the film quietly dismantled the Soviet cult of the heroic worker—subversive for state cinema.
The title 'Жить по-своему' ('To Live One's Own Way') was itself provocative; individualism was ideologically suspect.
SU
