How to Divorce During the War (2026)

At its core, How to Divorce During the War is about how long one can hold onto their moral principles and empathy when personal comfort is at stake. With an almost clinical eye, it explores how much one is willing to sacrifice to help the less fortunate, and how quickly their principles can crumble when the sacrifices become more demanding.

Set in Vilnius, the movie starts with Marija (Žygimantė Elena Jakštaitė), a media company executive, telling her husband Vytas (Marius Repšys), a former movie director turned stay-at-home dad, that she wants a divorce, just one day before Russia invades Ukraine. Their conflict is rooted in a quiet power imbalance and resentment over their reversed traditional gender roles. Directed in a deadpan tone by Andrius Blaževičius, and with great, believable performances from the main cast, How to Divorce During the War shifts its focus from what could’ve been a marriage drama to how the main characters deal with what’s happening in Ukraine. These sudden domestic and international changes allow both characters to act on their professed compassion. Marija quits her high-paying job because her company refuses to cut ties with Russia, and she takes in a family of Ukrainian refugees. Meanwhile, Vytas moves in with his parents and throws himself into the relief movement, volunteering to aid refugees and participating in public artistic displays protesting the war.

Because I live in a country that shares a small border with Ukraine, this movie resonated with me on far more levels than I expected. Like the characters in Vilnius, my community is constantly bombarded with Russian propaganda, and I know people exactly like Vytas’ elderly parents who actively believe it, just as there are children who, unquestioningly, follow their parents’ understanding of the world, much like Marija and Vytas’ daughter, Dovile. In the scene where Vytas physically removes his parents’ satellite antenna to stop them from listening to the propaganda, for a short while, his character stops looking like a washed-out artist trying to find a purpose and looks more like Superman. His preference for sleeping in the car and bathing in the lake rather than listening to more propaganda from his parents further illustrates his uncompromising adherence to his moral principles.