Those who remember the atmosphere of fear, humiliation, danger and exploitation suffered by women forced to have an unwanted baby or to terminate an unwanted pregnancy with a back alley abortion will find this account of two days in the lives of roommates Gavita and Otilia chilling.  This insightful film might well have the rest of us considering or reconsidering our present position on freedom, especially reproductive freedom.

Like Mike Leigh's Vera Drake, Mungiu’s pinpoint vision brings this issue into clear focus and serves as a warning of what current reactionary trends could lead to if hard won human rights are not protected.

Painfully slow moving and scoreless, its mood captures with devastating accuracy the shameful, secretive and costly pursuit of obtaining an illegal abortion.  No musical score suggests to viewers what they might feel, and none is needed.  The story belongs more to Otilia than to her pregnant roommate, her ordeal all the more harrowing as she arranges to meet a duplicitous stranger with his soothing helper/brutal bully persona, submits to his demands, and all the while carrying on through the weekend as though nothing out of the ordinary is happening.  Mungiu’s camera casts a cold blue gray color tone that chills to the bone. A must see.