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In a small Romanian town, Romeo (Adrien Titeini) is a local doctor who is hell-bent on ensuring his teenage daughter Eliza (Maria-Victoria Dragus) excels in her final high-school exams in order to be accepted at a university in the U.K. He is even willing to cross legal and ethical boundaries to make this happen after Eliza faces a crisis shortly before her exams.

Director/writer Christian Mungiu seems to have a knack for courageously exposing his home country's culture of corruption and the moral dilemmas this causes for average citizens - especially when these folks are in a quandary and "taking the high road" would not likely get them what they want and need. In "4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days", the story revolved around arranging an illegal abortion during the Communist era; in "Graduation" (which takes place in the current time), it involves Romeo's insistence that his only child must leave corrupt Romania in order to have a decent life and future.

"Graduation" begins quite well in introducing the audience to interesting characters and how they respond to the corruption in their midst. The middle part is even more intriguing as Romeo's moral compass goes so downhill that he is becoming what he once condemned. It is evident he's acted this way before but not at this level.

There are two key scenes in this section in which Romeo defends his actions. One involves an argument with his wife; the other with Eliza. During the dispute with his wife (played by Lia Bugnar), he argues how much she benefited from his smaller moral slips in the past even if she wouldn't have acted the same way herself. His argument is so convincing that even the viewer could agree with him in a very uncomfortable way.

The final segment does injustice to the beginning and the middle. It seems to go in various unnecessary directions and fails to continue the momentum built earlier. But "Graduation" is still a film worth seeing. It includes universal themes such as well-meaning parents over-planning their children's future plus a challenge to the belief that "the grass is always greener" somewhere else. And of course, the saying "O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive" is well played out in the narrative. - dbamateurcritic

Graduation, by Cristian Mungiu reviewed by NC Weil

This 2016 Romanian film by the director of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, spans the time between a young woman's high school final exams and her graduation. Her father, a doctor, and mother, a librarian, though estranged (he sleeps on the couch and has a lover), both dote on their daughter, and their highest concern is her well-being. The girl is an excellent student, but the day before her exams she is attacked by a would-be rapist - in the scuffle her wrist is broken, but her violation goes far deeper than bones in a cast.

Her father, a precise, methodical, and - yes - kind man, is determined to see her go to university in the UK where she has been offered a scholarship (contingent on high exam scores). He will do anything to make that plan happen. The assault is one more reason - Romania, for him, is a dead end. He and his wife are stuck there, but for their daughter, it is not too late. She must leave.

The film opens with a rock shattering a window of their ground-floor apartment - the doctor certainly has a point about the benefits of living elsewhere - and he has labored to give her the chance to escape. But after the assault she gets cold feet.

Strip away the differences between Romania's culture and our own, and the film boils down to a father wanting what he is convinced is best for his near-adult daughter, with his intentions overriding her own desires and distractions. Graduation is about leaving one phase of life to move into the next. The impossibility of planting your own experience directly into the heart and mind of a grown child is on painful display here - you have learned the hard way what you should have done, but she, rationally or not, has to make her own choices.

For a parent, relinquishing control can mean one's life has truly been wasted - you didn't save yourself, and you can't save her either. But she's no longer yours to control - to insist on obedience is to keep her dependent, unable to be any kind of adult. In the end, that stunting is probably a worse trap than whatever limits her bad decisions impose. Mungiu's sympathy for all his characters forces us to recognize that everyone, no matter how corrupt or self-serving, is just trying to make the best of the life they're stuck in. Futility outranks evil in his compromised worldview.

A realistic Romanian drama about the struggles, compromises and implications of the parent's role in a family. This is a really intelligent, well made film that gives a bleak representation of contemporary life in Romania, particularly the youth who are told by their previous generation that they must hope and start fresh in a depressing state, though they are searching for their identities themselves. I liked that the film didn't stretch the emotional depth to a point that it seemed too unlikely or cliché but rather describe an honest family situation. It did in places fall flat but it's ambiguous ending alludes to the mysteries and uncertainty of life which serves the premise of the film nicely.

When a man's daughter is assaulted the night before her final exams, her future, which he has set up so well, is thrown into question. Graduation is all about the lengths a father is willing to go for his children. Whether motivated by selfish reasons or genuine desire, the father wants nothing more than to get his daughter out of the morally corrupt environment that permeates their town. To accomplish his plans however, he starts to cross lines and partake in the system he openly reproaches. Christian Mungiu tackles these sensitive topics with care and compassion. Using long takes and unobtrusive camera work, Mungiu emphasizes character above all else. Every character is redeemable in some manner, but no one is innocent. Though the ending brings in an unnecessary police investigation that seems to beat the point home, it is redeemed by the haunting final image that gives a lot of disastrous implications about generational connections. As favors and obligations start to stack up, the father becomes entangled in a web of questionable decisions. The question ultimately becomes, "do good reasons make up for bad decisions?"

Graduation (2016) Directed by: Cristian Mungiu Screenplay by: Cristian Mungiu Producers: Cristian Mungiu Starring: Rares Andrici, Valeriu Andriuta, and Eniko Benczo Run Time: 2 hours 36 minutes

Romeo is a middle aged doctor in the rural mountains of Transylvania, he and his wife have long since exhausted the passion of their union and he seeks such comforts elsewhere. Meanwhile he and his wife live to see their daughter graduate and move to England to study psychology at university. All she has to do is finish school.

Then on the day before her final exams start she get assaulted outside the school. She is now an emotional wreck and all the careful plans laid over the last eighteen years are in tatters. However, Romania is the sort of place where if you have the right connections you can make things happen and so after a lifetime of doing the right thing Romeo finds temptation knocking on his door, that is to do the wrong thing but, in his heart, it is for the right reasons.

This is a very European film in that it often leaves things hanging – like life it is not all packaged for easy consumption. There is no musical score which adds to the mundanity of what is supposed to be ordinary in anyone's life. The societal issues are all dealt with in a way that makes them more or less matter of fact whilst not detracting from the base wrong doings that seem to be rampant. This is a film that uses a simple story to discuss complex issues that go into the very depths of belief and values and as such is one that is easy to recommend to all fans of thoughtful European cinema.