Beautiful cinematography. Fitting score. Melodramatic acting that works, especially due to the cinematography and framing choices. Incredible new visual elements such as when Veronika (Tatyana Samoylova) is running past the fence in the short emotional montage.
It almost pulled a tear out of my eye with the last few shots. My only quibble is the rape that resulted in the wedding I think was left ambiguous just out of conservatisms. By being ambiguous and not facing the difficulty story point head on, the film confuses and clouds and otherwise incredibly devastating and critical scene to tell a believable story.
Female focused films are fresh.