TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2025 REVIEW! Winter of the Crow is a fascinating, smart Cold War thriller by Polish director Kasia Adamik. Academy Award nominee Lesley Manville (Phantom Thread, The Crown) plays Professor Joan Andrews, a British professor who comes to Poland in the mid-80s to give a lecture on psychiatry at a university in Warsaw. She’s pretty self-absorbed and can’t seem to wrap her head around the dire straits of the people around her, who are politically oppressed and can scarcely afford to eat. A university student, Alina (Zofia Wichlacz), who invited her, is acting as her host, but she’s also a political activist and a key player in the resistance movement to communism.
Professor Andrews is upset when her luggage is lost, her lecture is interrupted by protests, and she’s given a couch to sleep on instead of being put up at a hotel. The next morning, her world is turned upside down as martial law is declared, tanks invade, and her hosts are nowhere to be found. She witnesses a political murder and is forced to go on the run in the brutal winter, without speaking the language, and with no one to turn to for help. What follows is an eye-opening look at the deprivation, paranoia, and resilience of Poland in the 1980s behind the Iron Curtain.
“She witnesses a political murder, and is forced to go on the run in the brutal winter, without speaking the language, and with no one to turn to for help.”
I’m a big fan of spy movies, but not so much the type that have over-the-top action. Once set pieces become the focus, and our hero or heroine can take out dozens of nameless goons with their fists, all believability flies out the window. I’m far more interested in spy movies where the intrigue, deception, and double-crossing are the focus, where the hero never quite knows who their friends are, or exactly how they are going to survive. Winter of the Crow is closest to that sophisticated version of the genre, but takes it up a notch.
Winter of the Crow is based on a short story, Professor Andrews Goes to Warsaw, by Nobel Laureate Olga Tokarczuk. Writers Sandra Buchta and Lucinda Coxon, along with director Kasia Adamik, who shares a writing credit, gender swapped the protagonist from the short story to great effect. An older British female professor of the era tends to carry more of a chip on her shoulder, defensiveness, and vulnerability than a man would. And when the trained assassins come for her, the sense of jeopardy is through the roof. This is a spy movie without a spy — just a scared older lady with no one to rely on. With women in all writing roles, as, director, and serving as the two leads, the result is a fresh and authentic take. It is something we’ve never quite seen before on screen, and it breathes new life into a venerable genre.
Much of the success of the film is owed to Lesley Manville, who perfectly embodies the role of Professor Andrews. She’s too full of herself to fully understand anything at first, but as she is thrust into a cold, harsh reality, her vulnerability comes through as her understanding of the place and people begins to grow.
“It is something we’ve never quite seen before on screen, and it breathes new life into a venerable genre.”
While popcorn spy movies are often a series of set pieces, set in barely connected exotic locales, Winter of the Crow feels like the antithesis. It is authentic and visceral, and it immerses you in 1980s Poland, complete with politics and intrigue. We get to see how people lived — instead of bread lines, they are issued carp, a popular holiday fish. And we get to see every manner in which people survived, whether it is collaborating with those in power, to sometimes murderous effect, or establishing secret networks of resistance.
The cinematography in Winter of the Crow, by Tomasz Naumiuk, is commendable — the gray, bleak snow-covered cityscapes evoke the dread and hopelessness faced by our hero. The colors may be desaturated, but when there is little joy, sunshine, or even food, that is the perfect way to capture the mood.
The direction of Winter of the Crow is top-notch. Kasia Adamik, who grew up in that era in Poland, is revisiting events from her childhood. But she’s brought to it an adult sensibility that is thrilling, deep, and entertaining. She’s made a Cold War thriller for the ages.
Winter of the Crow premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.
"…With women in all writing roles, as, director, and serving as the two leads, the result is a fresh and authentic take."
