Review of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007) by Nick M — 28 Jul 2010

Real life horror film. Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu brutally enforced anti-abortion up until the young adults he effectively birthed by those laws put him and his wife before the firing squad in 1989.

This movie, set some two years before the execution, follows the horrific reality faced by a young, unmarried pregnant woman some four months, etc., gone as described by the film?s title. Some will pass off the film out of hand as a pro-choice screed which misses the director Cristian Mungiu?s effort to allow for debate.

She presents the pregnant character Gabita as dishonest willing to use her roommate Otilia to get what she wants and ultimately indifferent to what she has done. She is a victim of the communist system but not an innocent one.

The praise lavished upon the film is due to its real life horror. Nothing in the ?Saw? series or the endless remakes, sequels, reboots, re-etc. of the ?Halloween? series compares in raw visceral fear of having to rely on a crooked backstreet ?doctor? while avoiding been caught by Romanian police, soldiers and their numerous informants and spending three plus years in prison.

The film hints that the more capable Otilia may be in for the same fate as Gabita and her discussion of the possibility with her boyfriend at his parents? dinner party has moments of terror that would leave Freddie Krueger, Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers themselves panic-stricken.

On the negative side the film is just as much of a tough-sit as it sounds. There is no comic relief, nearly no pleasant characters (Otilia is the hero of the piece but is hardly sweetness and light) and often the sense of foreboding is intolerable.

There are also minutes long scenes of what counts as the intercity in Romania at night where nothing happens beyond Otilia travelling by cab, train and foot ? while these heighten the charged atmosphere they become tiresome particularly with frequent repetition.

In short, worst date movie ever.