To appreciate "Farewell" it probably helps if you are old enough to remember the time period in which it was set. Intrigues concerning the Soviets probably won't seem all that important to young audiences.

The film begins about 1981 (though the time frame is rather vague in the story at times) in the Soviet Union. Sergei Gregoriev is a disaffected KGB official--one who has decided that the best way for his country to progress is for his government to fall. To speed this process, he's decided to leak information to the West. However, instead of going through expected channels, he picks a low-level Frenchman working in his country (Pierre Froment). Froment has no interest in this sort of intrigue and is, reluctantly, pulled into the affair. The name 'Farewell' is the code name Froment's bosses have given the case. What exactly happens next, you'll need to see for yourself, though suffice to say the true story (with some historical license in spots) helped lead to the crumbling of the USSR.

While there isn't a lot of information about Gregoriev and the Farewell Affair on the internet, what is there sometimes contradicts the film. His actual name was not Gregoriev but Vladimir Vetrov. A big twist near the end is the US government betraying Gregoriev and casting him to the KGB--which did NOT happen in real life. My wife did a bit of research and found Gregoriev was very self-destructive and came to the attention of the KGB after this alcoholic stabbed a couple people and then implicated himself! Not at all what you'll see in the film--and reason to knock at least a point off the overall score. Still, the film is very tense, very well acted and fascinating throughout. I just wonder why they had to make that jab at the US. Sometimes we, like other countries, deserve it but here it just seemed a bit,...well,...odd.

It's 1981 in Moscow. Pierre Froment (Guillaume Canet) is low level French diplomat who meets Soviet colonel Sergei Gregoriev (Emir Kusturica). Sergei is dismissive of the young diplomat at first. He has a rebellious son at home. He wants to change the world, change the USSR, and sees himself as a patriot. He has an affair with a colleague. Mitterrand keeps the information closely guarded using the information as currency with American president Reagan. Sergei is given the code name 'Farewell'.

Based on a book, this has the sound of truth and that's what so compelling. It's not a Bond movie or even a gritty convoluted spy thriller. The meetings are so mundane and so easy. It's not a movie high in tension except for the ending. This is a spy movie with the feel of the real world. It's about a flawed human being but he's never inhuman. There are many changes to the real story. All I know is that it has a sense of the real world.

Exciting film that was adapted from the book Bonjour Farewell: La Vérité Sur la Taupe Française KGB (1997) by Serguei Kostine with screenplay by the same director Christian Carion and Eric Raynaud . It deals with a naïve French engineer based in Moscow and a KGB analyst, Sergei Grigoriev, on the Soviet Union's clandestine program aimed at stealing technology from the West and disillusioned with the Soviet regime . He was assigned the code-name Farewell by the French intelligence service DST, which recruited him and delivering documents to a French nebbish in the diplomatic corps . He was known by that name throughout NATO's intelligence services. The French intelligence service alerts the U.S. about a Soviet spy operation during the height of the Cold War, which sets off an unfortunate chain of events.

This interesting movie set during the Cold War packs suspense , thrills , tension, intrigue and familiar drama . The picture is an espionage thriller loosely based on actions of the high-ranking KGB official, Vladimir Vetrov . Good performances from main cast as Guillaume Canet as Pierre Froment ,Emir Kusturica as Sergei Gregoriev , Alexandra Maria Lara as Jessica Froment ; furthermore an excellent support cast as Fred Ward as Ronald Reagan , Niels Arestrup as Vallier , Willem Dafoe as Feeney , David Soul as Hutton and many cameos as Diane Kruger as Femme jogging , Benno Fürmann and Gary Lewis. Thrilling as well as sensitive musical score by Clint Mansell. Evocative and colorful cinematography by Walther van den Ende. The flick was well directed by Christian Carion who formerly made two good films such as ¨Happy Christmas¨ and ¨The girl from Paris¨ .

The motion picture was well based on real events , these are the following : Vladimir Vetrov , in the film nicknamed Gregoriev , was born in 1932 and grew up within the Soviet system. After college, where he studied electronic engineering, he was enlisted in the KGB. He lived in France for five years, beginning in 1965 when posted there as a Line X officer working for the KGB's 'Directorate T', which specialized in obtaining advanced information about science and technology from western countries. While there, he befriended Jacques Prévost, an engineer working with Thomson-CSF. Vetrov returned to Moscow at the end of his posting. There, he rose through the ranks of Directorate T, eventually supervising the evaluation of the intelligence collected by Line X agents around the world, and passing key information to the relevant users inside the Soviet Union. Having become increasingly disillusioned with the Communist system, he decided to defect for purely ideological reasons . At the end of 1980, he contacted a Prévost and offered his services to the West. Between the spring of 1981 and early 1982, Vetrov gave the DST almost 4,000 secret documents, including the complete official list of 250 Line X officers stationed under legal cover in embassies around the world. Included was a breakdown of the Soviet espionage effort to collect scientific, industrial and technical information from the West to improve its own efforts. Members of the GRU, the Soviet Academy of Sciences, and several other bodies all took part in such efforts. Vetrov also provided summaries on the goals, achievements, and unfilled objectives of the program. He identified nearly 100 leads to sources in 16 countries. In February 1982, after heavy drinking caused by a cooling-off period imposed by the French, who were fearful of his discovery through too much contact, Vetrov stabbed his mistress during an argument in his car . When a man knocked on the car window, Vetrov thought his spying had been discovered, so he stabbed and killed the man. He happened to be another KGB officer. Vetrov was arrested, tried, and sentenced to 12 years in jail in the fall of 1982. While in jail, Vetrov carelessly revealed in letters that he had been involved in "something big" before going to jail. The KGB eventually discovered that he was a double agent. As part of his confession, Vetrov wrote a blistering denunciation of the Soviet system, "The Confession of a Traitor". News of his subsequent execution reached France in March 1985. The information which Vetrov provided enabled the western countries to expel nearly 150 Soviet technology spies around the world; the French expelled 47 Soviet spies, most of whom were from Line X. This caused the collapse of the Soviet's information program at a time when it was particularly crucial. The U.S. created a massive operation to provide the Soviets with faulty data and sabotaged parts for certain technologies, as a consequence to the Farewell Dossier.