Child’s Pose 2013

If you’ve never seen a Romanian “New Wave” film you might want to start with this compelling tightly woven story of a well off middle age architect-set designer and her damaged relationship with her grown son. The film directed by Calin Peter Netzer opens with the mother played by the wonderful Luminita Gheorghiu who gives a superb performance sitting, smoking and bitching about someone to her sister who is also sitting and smoking. It turns out that Luminita is talking about her estranged son who wants nothing to do with her.
And without meeting the son we can see why. Cornelia is controlling and demanding, a woman who can’t really see the truth of her life and how toxic she is and who needs to have everything go her own way. She brow beats her timid but angry husband shamelessly interrogates her cleaning lady who also cleans her son’s apartment on his reading habits, (what books are on his nightstand) and rewards her with a pair shoes she no longer wants, but are too small for the cleaning lady. “Well give them to your daughter” she tells her as if she was doing her a big favor, the queen bestowing a gift to her servant girl. Supposedly she is a success at her profession, but we never see any hint of her work only the rewards that her success brings.
The film is very tightly composed with not many details of time or place so if you think you’re going to see what Bucharest is like forget about it. There is a 60th somewhat lavish birthday party for Cornelia in which her son does not attend and at an avant-garde opera performance she is called away by her sister who tells her that her son was in a terrible car accident but is alright, however a 14 year old peasant boy was killed. Cornelia goes into action taking control of the tragic situation giving everyone she comes in contact with a hard time, especially the gentle woman that her son lives with and who she is jealous of.
There are many confrontations between Cornelia and her son, the police, doctors and her husband and the underlining thread running through the film is if you have enough money, pull and connections you can buy your way out of anything. Nothing new there, but I doubt that such a movie like this would or could ever get made in this country unless heaven help us Sandra Bullock played the lead. The film ends as abruptly as it begins. One of the best films of 2013.