* * * *

Anamaria Marinca, Laura Vasiliu, Alexandry Potocean, Vlad Ivanov. Written and directed by Cristian Mungui. Not rated. 113 minutes. IFC Films.

The lengths of loyalty are tested in Cristian Mungui’s stunning Romanian feature 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, a challenging and demanding drama that unfolds as a day in the lives of two friends desperately trying to secure an illegal abortion in Communist Romania, circa 1987.

This deceptively simple film, following the harrowing odyssey of a college-aged coed going to great lengths to procure the procedure, feels like a made-on-video home movie at first glance. However, it is actually an assured, accomplished experience, effectively transporting us to a terrifying time and place, stacking the deck against its anti-heroines with rising suspense and a look at an oppression that drove ordinary girls to awful extremes. It won the coveted Palm D’Or at Cannes last year, and it’s easy to see why.

The film begins like a reality documentary as college roommates Otilla (Anamaria Marinca) and Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) prepare for a seemingly ordinary day, and immediately the film suggests a dingy realism that informs Otilla’s subsequent struggle to secure a hotel room (for what we are unsure), which is no easy task and requires a lot of money, identification and interrogation. To put it mildly, the properties are unconcerned with customer satisfaction.

These leisurely paced scenes that comprise the first third of the film indeed test patience, as we watch and listen unaware of exactly what is happening. Otilla meets her embattled boyfriend (Alexandru Potocean) at the university before getting into the car of mysterious Bebe (Vlad Ivanov), hired to perform a still unknown service and not too happy about the arrangements. There’s a tension at this point that is palpable and uneasy, and when the pair arrive in the clandestine hotel room joined by naïve Gabita, we discover that a dangerous, underground abortion is to be performed.

Immediately, complications ensue. To Bebe’s dismay, identification needs to be left at the hotel desk. Next we discover Gabita has lied about her pregnancy stage, being much further than initially divulged. Soon the women must offer sexual favors to compensate. Director Mungui effectively ratchets up the desperation, and the horror is born from the calm—chiefly Bebe’s clinical description of the procedure and its potential effects. This is dangerous territory all right, and he exploits the unlikely conspirators both sexually and monetarily, fully aware they are at his mercy. He is truly monstrous, yet provides a necessary service, simultaneously teetering between compassion and violence. Ivanov’s performance is a chilling portrait of opportunism of the basest kind, in the worst of circumstances.

But the procedure is only the beginning. Once completed, Otilla ventures into the night to attend her boyfriend’s mother’s birthday party, and a brilliantly conceived scene at a kitchen table—a lengthy single take of trivial and meaningless festivities from which Otilla longs to escape—raises the tension to an unbearable level.

The less said about the film’s harrowing climax the better, but it looks closely at an oppressive, economically depressed and burnt out, cold world haunted by penetrating stares and intrigue in every shadowy corner. The final sequences are straight out of some Cold War spy film, as Otilla wanders the foreboding streets, knowing that the unspeakable contents of her handbag, if discovered, will put her away for life. It is perhaps the most frightening sequence in any film in a long time.

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is not simply a pro-choice film as reductive accusations have mistakenly asserted. Rather, it is a pro-human, anti-Communist statement about perseverance, tenacity and loyalty in the face of awful odds. Otilla, the most selfless of movie characters, is driven to help her friend through a personal crisis, ultimately beating the unforgiving system that controls their daily lives.  The superbly natural, non-acting performance of Marinca, an extraordinary actress behaving so ordinarily onscreen, is a major piece of work. 

A terrific film.

- Lee Shoquist