Harrowing and ruthless portrayal of social problems in communist Romania.

a well-shot film that, once again, proves that you don't need quick cuts to create tension if you have competent actors.

So quiet, so unnasuming. So brilliant. Some scenes are held in one take for 10 minutes, with the characters moving around the frame, sometimes even off-camera. This is a film that makes you think, and it's absorbing. Yet, nothing really happens. And that's the beauty of it.

Bleak, slow-paced and dealing with illegal abortions, this could easily have been yet another "I can't believe how horrible (and brown) life was behind the iron curtain" movie, but it is so well written, directed and acted that the human drama remains in the center and stays both relevant, moving and particularly gripping as the heroine proves, that she is the best friend in the world...

And now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go kill myself.

A thought provoking film with a quite distinctive filming style- Long takes and static framing. A film about Romania, about abortion but also about friendship. Terribly bleak.

shockingly realistic

i don't remember this well so going with RT top critics.

Shot with lengthy, unflinching camera shots, watching this made me feel as if I was witnessing the events directly, rather than through a movie. And that's exactly what makes it so effective: we are seeing an event that seems so un-fabricated (due also in part to the great acting) that it conjures deep feelings with very little provocation. The events in this film happen ALL THE TIME in this world, but sometimes it takes actually seeing them for them to seem as sickening as they should.

A deep and touching time travel to 80's Communist system. It's also a brutal story how lonely and beaten women are with unwanted pregnancy. The sound track has been build carefully as was the chilling camera work. Director laid wisely on strong acting skills with skillful actors and main leads. More you know about the Communist mentality more you get from this film. Has the guilt of women changed much in modern times?

It's all in the details. It's all in the meticulously framed long takes - the tableau style - that really show the pain, uncertainty and despondency of the hopelessly absurd, the downright impossible situation that these two women, as well as the society as a whole, find themselves in. At once artfully poetic and emotionally raw.

Really, really tense and unnerving. Cheery stuff.

This one took me by surprise.

i appreciate that it is absolutely realistic movie describing communist Romania in 80s. but i can not like too much movies which are so depressive. despite that time at that location was really so depressive...