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4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days

Universal acclaim
Based on 37 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 116 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Cristian Mungiu
Directed by: Cristian Mungiu
Release Date:
Theatrical: January 23, 2008
DVD: October 14, 2008
Running Time: 113 minutes, Color
Origin: Romania
Language(s): Romanian / English
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Starring Anamaria Marinca, Laura Vasiliu, Vlad Ivanov, and Alexandru Potocean
During the final days of communism in Romania, two college roommates Otilia and Gabita are busy preparing for a night away. But rather than planning for a holiday, they are making arrangements for Gabita's illegal abortion and unwittingly, both find themselves burrowing deep down a rabbit hole of unexpected revelations. (IFC Entertainment)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Empire Damon Wise
Tense, kinetic, intelligent and real – as if Paul Greengrass had remade Vera Drake.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
This is a film with a commitment to reality unlike any we're used to seeing.
Read Full Review >Variety Jay Weissberg
Pitch perfect and brilliantly acted, 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days is a stunning achievement, helmed with a purity and honesty that captures not just the illegal abortion story at its core but the constant, unremarked negotiations necessary for survival in the final days of the Soviet bloc.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
Though the frighteningly late-term abortion at its center hints at larger sins in the last gasp of Nicolae Ceausescu’s iron-fisted regime, it’s no metaphor, but a sordidly visceral transaction conducted in the next best thing to a back alley.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Nothing good happens in 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, the riveting, horrifying chronicle of an illegal abortion performed in 1987 when Ceauescu's dictatorial hand still gripped Romania's throat. And yet no lover of greatness in filmmaking will want to look away from one of the very best movies of 2007.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Manohla Dargis
It’s a pitiless, violent story that in its telling becomes a haunting and haunted intellectual and aesthetic achievement.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
4 Months unfolds like one of those street-level Dardenne brothers movies (Rosetta, L'Enfant).
Read Full Review >Premiere Glenn Kenny
A remarkably engrossing and thoughtful picture, beautifully rendered in an artful mode of realism.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
This year’s foreign language Oscar scandal – there is always at least one – is the snub of director Cristian Mungiu’s disturbing, masterful realist drama following two college roommates as they carry out plans for one’s black market abortion in Communist Romania.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
The film is bold stroke that hopes to push Romanian society forward by staring into the dismal failures of its recent past.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
Despite their terrible ordeal these women are heroes, not victims. As Mungiu makes clear in the casual, brilliant final scene of this amazing movie, heroes persevere.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
First, this movie should be enjoyed. Later, marveled at. And then, once the excitement has faded, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days really should be studied, because director Cristian Mungiu creates scenes unlike any ever filmed.
Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
The New Wave of Romanian cinema is the most exciting in the world right now. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days is its latest masterpiece.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Writer-director Cristian Mungiu confirms the Romanian cinema renaissance while creating a paradoxical marvel: a bleak tale of illegal abortion that powerfully affirms one's faith in people.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
The result is a mixture of unified atmosphere and lived-in character study, and while Vasiliu’s role is not as indelible as that of her co-stars, Marinca’s Otilia and Ivanov’s steely abortionist are just about perfect.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
This is a powerful film and a stark visual accomplishment, but no thanks to Gabita (Laura Vasiliu). The driving character is her roommate Otilia (Anamaria Marinca), who does all the heavy lifting.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
A grueling and deeply affecting human drama.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
In a truly great movie the form becomes indistinguishable from the story, and that’s certainly the case here.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
Romanian writer-director Cristian Mungiu's brilliantly discomfiting second feature is one long premonition of disaster.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
You just don't expect Hollywood to produce a masterwork so early in the new year. And it hasn't. This slice of celluloid dynamite comes from Romania, and what you see will floor you.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Without a single gunshot (and just one flick of a switchblade), it turns into an existential suspense film with the highest stakes imaginable: the survival of the human spirit.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Anamaria Marinca delivers an utterly transfixing performance as Otilia, a young woman who helps a friend (Laura Vasiliu) obtain an illegal abortion in the waning days of Romania's communist Ceausescu regime.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
The coup de grâce is especially graceless because everything we know is already visible in Marinca’s eyes. The actress is extraordinary.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Relentlessly dark but expertly rendered, it shares its cinematographer and quality of aggrieved compassion with another recent Romanian art house hit, "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu."
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Depressing and gut-wrenching, but always powerful and gripping.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Despite being slow and deliberate, it is often compelling and occasionally riveting. As "The Lives of Others" was in 2007, this is the first memorable movie of 2008.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
A grueling film in both technique and subject matter.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Rick Kisonak
This is a tale of friendship, corruption, betrayal and desperation masterfully told without an ounce of filmmaking flash and with an unflinching commitment to realism.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett
The film is dark, gloomy and without music, but it is also observant and highly suspenseful, with Mungiu using his often static camera to balance banal cruelty with simple generosity.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker Anthony Lane
Mungiu’s pacing is so sure, however, in its switching from loose to taut, and the concentration of his leading lady so unwavering, that the movie, which won the Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, feels more like a thriller than a moody wallow.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt
A curious filmgoing experience: Virtuosic, assured, and possessed of undeniable aesthetic force, it’s also hard not to turn away from.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
It makes "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu" and "12:08 East of Bucharest," the last glum Romanian movies about life under dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, seem merry.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.9 (out of 10) based on 116 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Mike H gave it a5:
After having seen the rave reviews on Metacritic I decided to buy this film. Honestly, I'm at a loss as to what all the fuss is about! It seemed like the film never really got going, I couldn't connect with it, and, as other people have said, not a great deal happens. Though not the worst film I've seen by a long-shot, disappointment was my main feeling, that and waiting for it to end...
James O gave it a1:
God awful. This is another independent movie that has the critics' panties all in a bunch. The reason it's terrible: nothing happens in the movie. It plods along with scenes of dialogue followed by more scenes of dialogue about the most mundane shit ever. Yeah, it sucks to be living in an oppressive Communist society. We get it. At least make it more interesting with a STORY or something. Acting is decent. The scenery and props are pretty good too; it's pretty drab and depressing looking which gives it atmosphere. Otherwise, a complete waste of time.
Coco Bunny gave it a9:
One of the most compelling and heartbreaking films I've ever seen. It tackles the hard subjects of totalitarianism or abortion without beating you over the head with a given message. It simply tells the story of these two girls--a very sad one at that.
Anna gave it a10:
Excellent movie, not for the light hearted, though. paradoxically enough, it is not really about what seems to be the main event: an abortion. Instead, it captures in a both subtle and gripping manner the essence of communism: a system corrupt to the bone that rules through fear, where everyone keeps an eye on someone else and the only way to survive is to become part of that system. The inherent dehumanisation such a system brings about does not escape the director.
Evan W gave it a10:
An excellent piece of foreign cinema. You can feel it slowly clasp onto you, then push you down to the ground. It leaves with you with an emotional feeling that is hard to find with movies.
Mircea C. gave it an8:
For those who don't know yet (and I can see there are a lot in here) Romania IS/WAS NOT PART OF THE SOVIET UNION. Learn some geography before posting here, ok?
Kris R. gave it a9:
This was an emotionally riveting, haunting film. The acting was extraordinary.
