Russia, 1917. The young doctor Polyakov arrives to work at a hospital in a remote village. After an allergic reaction to a vaccine, he starts to take morphine but becomes progressively addicted. Soon, he finds himself trying to undertake more ambitious operations whilst under the drug’s influence.

Set on the cusp of the 1917 revolution, Morphine examines the grisly practicalities of provincial medical care. Based on the autobiographical novels of Mikhail Bulgakov, and written by the late Sergey Bodrov Jr, Aleksey Balabanov’s haunting drama is a descent into a dark night of the Russian soul.