Saturday, December 1, 2012

4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days

Holy shiz!  4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days is a very realistic story about Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) and her friend Gabita (Laura Vasiliu). The story takes place in a 1987 Romania when abortions were illegal when, SURPRISE, Gabita ends up pregnant. Otilia being the bestest most loyal friend ever decides to help her get an illegal sma-smortion.

Gabita comes off as a giant f*ck-up. I get that she is all nervous and what not, you know putting not only her life on the line but risking getting caught and going to jail, but honestly get your shit together. It seems like everything she did to prepare for her "procedure" got screwed up. First, she was suppose to book a room at a specific hotel. But that reservation got lost and was never made. So Otilia has to once again clean up her mess and find another room. Then, Gabita wasn't feeling well enough to meet Bebe (Vlad Ivanov), the man giving her an abortion, even though she promised to meet him. Instead she once again sends Otilia. Bebe is PISSED that Gabita didn't meet him in person and is already in a bad mood when he arrives at the hotel to perform the... termination (I'm running out of words for abortion already). When they arrive it turns out that once again Gabita screwed up (this isn't even counting the giant screw up of getting pregnant). She forgot the plastic sheet. O well, here's hoping she doesn't bleed out everywhere. Did I mentioned she lied about how far along she was? This pisses off Bebe even more so he ups his price. But oops, guess who doesn't have that much money? Luckily Bebe is a reasonable man and agrees at a lower price on one condition. Both girls have to have sex with him. I think that is a good spot to stop the synopsis. I don't want to give away all the good parts.

Needless to say this movie IS NOT for everyone. With its bleak production design and realistic lighting, it made me feel a little depressed right away. You knew this story wasn't going to have one of those "and they all lived happily ever after" endings. But the acting was pretty impressive. They have extremely long takes with minimal cutting. It was almost mesmerizing to see Otilia during the dinner scene. Sometimes the best kind of acting is where you do nothing at all.

And as for the whole controversial abortion thing. I just want to put it out there that I am all for a women's right to chose. And this is a good example of why. Do people really think that if they make abortions illegal people will actually stop getting them? If someone really wants an abortion they are going to get one. And they probably won't do it in the safest way possible. If that were to happen I can just see "Take Them to the Cleaners" becoming a factual story (not really I just wanted to link it). So I apologize now if I talked about abortions too much. Wasn't my agenda.

Rating: *** (it would be 4 but I don't know if I would watch it again)






***SPOILERS***
1. Otilia totally broke the fourth wall right before credits started rolling and it freaked me out.
2. I thought they wouldn't showed it. I prayed they wouldn't show it. But secretly I wanted them to show it. Yup, they showed the fetus.

2 comments:

  1. Was the fetus as realistic as the one in take them to the cleaners?

    ReplyDelete
  2. If only it would have opened its eyes.

    ReplyDelete