Movie Night Review: 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days

Well, if Slate and Netflix are looking for candidates in the most unwatched category next year, this dark but affecting drama out of Romania will probably be high on the list.

I'd heard the tough to remember title "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" referred to as a kind of "The Life of Others" (that Best Foreign Film upset from a couple years ago). I adore "The Life of Others", hubby watches it compulsively and this is one I wanted to see in theaters but missed. I was surprised however when it showed up on the hubby-managed Netflix queue. (He was unaware of the subject matter.)

"4 Months..." is riveting. A fascinating character study framed within an explosive and timely subject: a black market abortion in communist Romania. The film is gritty, naturalistic and graphic. Seeing a 5 month fetus on the floor of a bathroom floor is haunting, a first for me as a movie watcher, and a moment that I'm unlikely to forget.

You know you're watching a foreign film too. The scenes are long, sometimes shot in one take. The tension is excruciating. The camera lingers. The director, Cristian Mungiu, shuns close ups and barnstorming theatrics for quiet moments in the shadows.

The basic plot is about a tech student, Otilia (played by Anamaria Marinca) who in the final days of Communist Romania helps her weepy best friend/roommate Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) get an illegal abortion. It's clear from early that they're in over their head. They don't have financial resources and aren't used to dealing with the seedy underworld. It's only the fierce determination of Otilia that pulls them through...but at a brutal emotional cost.

It is impossible to watch a film like this and not think about the current debate on abortion. I came away more convinced than ever that for women like Otilia who want professional lives, who are on par with their boyfriends academically one moment and cooking them and their brood potato stew the next, "choice" is a human right. Having said that, in its gruesome reality, director Mungiu doesn't sanitize the subject, making his audience cognisant of the heart-breaking, flesh and blood sacrifice made in choosing "choice."




"4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" gets 3 1/2 Oscars out of 5.