The actions take place nowadays in the small town of Kalinov in the Volga region, where nothing has changed since the classic Alexander Ostrovsky's time - whenever a ray of light appears in the dark kingdom, it is either doomed to fade away quietly in general stupidity and ignorance, or to sparkle brightly in protest against lying and stupid willfulness. A young married woman, Katerina Kabanova, lives, at first glance, a happy life. It's only her mother-in-law Kabanikha who is always picky and does not leave her alone. And a weak husband, Tikhon, though he loves his wife, always takes the side of his powerful mother. When Katerina suddenly falls in love with a relative of the town's mayor, a young man called Boris, he discovers that he also has the tenderest feelings for her.

The director and author of the script Grigory Kostantinopolsky has slightly modernized not only the scenery of the play written by Ostrovsky in 1859, but also the text of the play. Dikoi is now not just a respected man, but a powerful master of Kalinova, while Kabanikha has a successful business and informal relations with the mayor. The traveller Feklusha (Maria Shalaeva) became a participant of the "Battle of Extrasensory Perception Experts" and an obvious swindler, and although she still tells us about people with dog heads living abroad, about other kingdoms and sultans, people still believe Feklusha. Half mad Barynia (Alisa Khazanova) is now running for a deputy with the slogan "Eat, pray, and honor your elders."

In Konstantinopolsky's film, even Kuligin (Ivan Makarevich), the strange inventor of the perpetuum-mobile, turned into a rapper and a supporter of progressive ideas, who constantly pickets with slogans, reads his lines, and gets to the police. And Katerina, longing for Tikhon who has left to make a business trip, is going to record Storys on her mobile phone.

Grigory Konstantinopolsky about the film: "In my opinion, this is a modern and topical play. It has been 150 years, but nothing has changed. And this is surprising. Everything that is happening now in our lives, happens as if these years have not passed. Those who read the play will not find any archaic points in the film, as if everything was happening today - this is the key attraction of "The storm".

The film premiered within the scope of the main competition program of the 30th Kinotavr Festival in Sochi on June 15, 2019.