Christian Bale as Tsarevich AlexeiThe film revolves around Anna Anderson, who believes that she is Anastasia Romanov, daughter of Nicholas II of Russia. Anna first tells her story in the 1920s when she is an inmate in a Berlin asylum. Her story of escape from the Bolsheviks who killed the rest of her family in 1918 seems so vivid that many Russian expatriates are willing to believe her. She slowly gains more trust, but the Romanov family is very resistant to believing her tale and publicly denounces her as an impostor. The movie culminates with Anna deciding to sue the Romanovs to force them to recognize her as Anastasia, but never reveals if Anna really is Anastasia.