Plot
Paul Hanganu loves two women. Adriana his wife and the mother of their daughter, the woman with whom he's shared the thrills of the past ten years, and Raluca the woman who has made him redefine himself. He has to leave one of them before Christmas.
Release Year: 2010
Rating: 7.1/10 (1,599 voted)
Critic's Score: 81/100
Director:
Radu Muntean
Stars: Dragos Bucur, Maria Popistasu, Mimi Branescu
Storyline Paul Hanganu loves two women. Adriana his wife and the mother of their daughter, the woman with whom he's shared the thrills of the past ten years, and Raluca the woman who has made him redefine himself. He has to leave one of them before Christmas.
Writers: Razvan Radulescu, Radu Muntean
Cast: Dragos Bucur
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Cristi
Maria Popistasu
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Raluca
Mimi Branescu
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Paul Hanganu
Victor Rebengiuc
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Nucu
Mirela Oprisor
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Adriana Hanganu
Ioana Blaj
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Trivia:
The rehearsals before the movie was actually shot took about 3 weeks.
Goofs:
Errors in geography:
When Paul drives his daughter to the dentist, and Adriana calls, he says he is going to Hala Traian, but he was driving the car on Magheru, from University towards Piata Roamana, the opposite way to Hala Traian.
User Review
Truthfulness
Rating: 10/10
Don't let yourself be scared away by the scarcity and banality of the
plot written on the main page here. It's not the fault of the person
who wrote it, you simply cannot add more. It sounds like a story which
has been told in books and movies for hundred and thousand of times. So
what's so special here? The dramatic tension that builds up and the
truthfulness to ... well, to life (I know it sounds quite mundane)are
quite special. Don't expect blows and strokes a la "Damage" or "La
paura", you won't find them here.
After Christmas, after the time of (profane) rituals, conventions and
mystifying is gone, Paul, the leading male character, hopes to begin
anew, to be more truthful to himself, although knowing this will cause
a lot of sorrow to some of his beloved ones. There is nothing exterior
that forces him to confess the truth, knowing that this confession will
bring an irremediable change to his life. Somebody else could live on,
performing the same rituals and conventions (of family life, of life as
a married adult with a child), Paul can't. It's up to anyone to decide
how much convention and steadiness one is willing to accept feeling the
growing "burden of the heart".
This is probably director Radu Muntean's most cohesive movie up to
date. With his previous attempt to make a Romanian-middle-class-drama,
"Boogie", I felt that there is something (small, indeed) missing, there
was still something round-up. Not the case with this movie, nothing too
much or too less, my grouchy self piped down. Great performances by the
main actors, incredible tense scenes (the bed scene, at the dentist's,
visit to Constanta, confession, Christmas Eve), naturalistic dialogue,
etc. Like in other young Romanian director's movies (Puiu, Mungiu,
Porumboiu), expect quite a lot of long takes, minimalist soundtrack, no
hyperboles, no black and white painting. Just truthfulness.
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