The Ex

Years after a 16-year-old posts a girlfriend's photo in a general chat, a man builds a steady life with his fiancee Katya who is about to marry him. Yet the online memory refuses to stay buried. Mysterious messages tied to his past begin to surface in Katya's inbox and in shared chats, turning ordinary moments into a creeping nightmare. The Ex follows a couple as digital traces from a teenage romance reemerge and threaten their future. The more they try to ignore the messages, the stronger the sense that someone is watching their life through screens. The story uses social networks and instant messaging as a pressure cooker for fear, showing how online whispers can distort reality long after the posts fade.

Directed by Evgeny Puzyrevsky, The Ex arises from an original screenplay by Pyotr Tochilin, Veronika Voznyak, and Vladimir Batrameev. The budget is 744,835 dollars, and the film released in 2021 with a tight production schedule that favors atmosphere over spectacle.

Box office figures for The Ex have not been publicly disclosed, reflecting its limited release and indie scale. The producers likely relied on festival play and streaming to reach audiences.

As of now there are no major awards or nominations on record for The Ex. Its reputation rests more on mood and premise than on accolades.

Reception centers on its atmosphere and the resonance of online life. Critics note that the film uses a restrained setting, careful pacing and sound design to translate digital anxiety into tangible dread. The themes revolve around how trust survives in a relationship tested by hidden online histories, the persistence of memories through screens, and the way modern communication can warp intimacy. Characters are sketched with precise detail, letting fear grow from small miscommunications and ambiguous messages rather than from gore. By foregrounding digital footprints and social networks The Ex asks audiences to consider how much of our lives exists online and how easily a life can tilt when a message arrives.