‘My Undesirable Friends: Part II – Exile’ Review: An Enormous, Riveting Documentary Sequel Following Reporters on the Run

Julia Loktev continues to wield her iPhone like a personal diary while following journalists targeted by the Kremlin.

By Siddhant Adlakha

Siddhant Adlakha

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Following her mammoth five-hour odyssey “My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow,” Julia Loktev’s sequel remains just as riveting, if not more so, in its continued depiction of journalists escaping the Russian government. Its predecessor’s endpoint (one Loktev could not have foreseen when she began shooting on her iPhone X) was the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and the overnight escape of her close friends from Moscow after they were branded foreign agents for reporting on war crimes. “My Undesirable Friends: Part II – Exile” follows their stories amidst this exodus, a globetrotting journey that proves harrowing in unexpected ways over an engrossing five chapters, spanning 355 minutes.

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