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The fact that this Romanian masterpiece was overlooked by the Academy just goes to show the need for a new system when it comes to nominating films for best foreign language film. This Cannes-winning film is so powerful that other 2008 film will have a high bar to pass if they want to claim the title as best film of the year. The story is simple with no forced melodrama. It not just a gripping look at the oppressive nature of Soviet-run Romania in the 1980s, but deals with topics that will be debated till the end of time. What makes this film so brilliant is that it simply unblinkingly tells its difficult story and allows the audience to come up with their own conclusions.

Otilia (Anamaria Marinca, YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH) is helping her college roommate Gabita Dragut (Laura Vasiliu) an illegal abortion. Gabita is extremely naïve and scared about the situation, making Otilia do most of the legwork. With the threat of years of imprisonment for just being caught helping someone get an abortion, Otilia is a friend that anyone would be lucky to have. The situation is so touchy that she even keeps her plans from her boyfriend Adi (Alexandru Potocean, THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU), who gets upset when his girlfriend doesn’t want to come to his mother’s birthday party. But she certainly has other things on her mind, such as meeting with the abortionist Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov), who seems disturbed when Otilia shows up instead of Gabita, which was the plan.

This tense drama uses its characters’ natures to build tension instead of forcing plot complications on them. Gabita’s naiveté creates a great deal of problems and as the situation gets increasingly out of control Otilia is forced to step in and make unimaginable decisions on behalf of her friend. This ordeal will be something neither of them will ever forget, but will want to ever day for the rest of their lives. Events will transpire that will make them question their motivations and the motivations of the one’s around them. Trust, broken and desperately needed, could be seen as a hidden theme.

Marinca’s performance is rock solid like her character. She doesn’t flinch under pressure easily, but she will certainly be tested. There is a great tense interchange between her character and Gabita that cuts to the core of who she is and what she thinks of her friend. Vasiliu is certainly the yin to Marinca’s yang. Nearly falling apart from the start, Vasiliu crafts a character so innocent that we don’t now if we want to strangle her or put a protective bubble around her. It’s easy to see how she has gotten herself into the predicament that she is in. Ivanov’s Mr. Bebe throws an X factor into the mix, making us uncertain how to judge him from the moment we first meet him until he leaves the picture. Keep in mind what he leaves behind at the hotel and the varying things it might say about him.

No film about abortion has so touched me. What you take out of the film is certainly influenced with what you bring in. It’s not a pro-life or pro-choice production; it lives and breathes in the gray of real life. Making everything more difficult is the setting, with characters bartering on the black market for orange Tic-Tacs and Kent cigarettes. The fear that a cop will be lurking around every corner is not a paranoid threat that the film hangs over the audience. Writer/director Cristian Mungiu has made a drama that plays with the intensity of a taut thriller. No first meeting with a boyfriend’s parents has ever been as nail biting as the one here. It’s just one of the moments that displays the perfectly lean construction of this captivating film. From the patient build of the long take in the girl’s apartment to the camera frantically chasing Otilia through the streets of the ghetto to the perfection of the closing line and shot, 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS is a film that grabs you and shakes you alive with the knowledge that cinema is not dead.