4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days: Movie Review (2008)

Written and directed by Cristian Mungiu, 113 minutes, not rated. In Romanian with English subtitles.

Cristian Mungiu’s "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days," winner of last year’s Palme d’Or, is set in 1987 Romania toward the end of Nicolae Ceausescu’s tyrannical rule.

The time in which the film is set is significant for several reasons, chiefly because it was Ceausescu, long before his Christmas Day execution in 1989, who reversed Romania’s stand on abortion, thus making the procedure illegal and punishable (with few exceptions) whereas beforehand, women had the right to choose.

Ceausescu criminalized abortion upon his ascension to power in 1966. Twenty-one years later in 1987, his corrupt dictatorship had turned Romania into a country of chaos, poverty and turmoil, so much so that Romania became a country of outlaws forced to turn to the black market to have their needs met. There, cigarettes were a popular choice. So was finding someone who would perform an abortion.

It’s in this atmosphere of fear and risk that "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" takes place. The movie opens in a crowded college dormitory with roommates Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) and Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) packing their bags for some time away. On the sly, they buy cigarettes and toiletries. Though the film’s title is a giveaway, it’s only gradually that we learn they’re preparing for Gabita’s abortion.

Turns out she’s lucky to have Otilia for a friend. Whereas Gabita is flighty and unfocused, Otilia is a force, balancing in one harrowing day Gabita’s sketchy abortion and the birthday party being thrown for her boyfriend’s mother across town. The abortion comes first, though it nearly doesn’t go off because Gabita failed to secure a room at the hotel chosen by Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov), the gruff man they hired to perform the abortion.

While Bebe’s surname proves that Mungiu isn’t without a dark sense of humor, that’s where the humor ends. Bebe is a brute who uses his power over the situation to his benefit. He does so in ways that turn this drama into part tragedy and part thriller, particularly when he learns that Gabita lied to him about how far along she is in her pregnancy. There’s a price to be paid for that lie — aborting a fetus this late in its term could, after all, cost him 10 years in prison if he were caught. And so Bebe becomes determined to exact a higher payment from each woman, though through means that have nothing to do with money.

Throughout this tense, superbly crafted movie, it’s as if a camera is nowhere near the actors — their performances are that good, that natural. Helping to that end is the dialogue, which seems unscripted. Every corner of this movie speaks to authenticity, such as the terrific scene in which Otilia, her face a mask of concern, is sandwiched among her boyfriend’s chatty family when all she wants to do is to be with Gabita, who very well could be bleeding to death back at their hotel room. The scene in which Otilia rushes back to the hotel through the city’s dark streets is the film at its unnerving best.

So far, "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" joins "Persepolis" and "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" in being among last year’s best foreign language films.

Grade: A