Sarah McCarthy’s Anastasia is a solid, if disappointing short documentary that had the potential to be so much more than it was, even with its lovely moments. Anastasia’s mother is a delight, giving us the most candid and honest moments in a documentary that can at times feels too stage managed. The film barely scratches the surface of any of the subjects that it covers – Anastasia’s activism, the death of her daughter, her grief, her relationships with her surviving children, or her role as a dissident in Russia. This is a film that is trying to do too much, trying to cover too much, so every idea feels truncated. There are good and beautiful moments throughout, there’s just not enough depth to be as satisfying as it should.