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...and learn to stop worrying and love the bomb? Probably not, director-writer Radu Jude doesn't imply the unavoidable condition of our fate with his newest foray into social satire. It is rather an appraisal of this odd stage in history, where we've stepped a toe into the future of work and self-expression, but our day to day has cynical commercialism flowing through its veins. Given these underpinnings, why should we expect much? Jude finds a good balance in his latest work, which is seemingly crass, yet full of class (ahah, sorry), in a narrative and visual layering that flows freely and conjures a kind of complexity that's often hard to catch on film.

You should intuit this movie is something else as soon as you see its poster. Funnily enough, it's one of those things that make next no sense out of context and as soon as you get the context, it seems the most obvious choice. Add to that the almost three hour runtime, the international cast, which includes Nina Hoss and Uwe Boll (really spanning the breadth of German cinema there), and you get a sense of how Jude's new film has a specific kind of guts to it.

So what's the story? Our protagonist Angela (Ilinca Manolache) is a production assistant at a Bucharest-based film company that's about to shoot a public relation's bit for an Austrian business operating in Romania. Angela's job is your too typical sixteen hour shifter, that involves everything from shooting audition material, to delivering technical gear, to doing airport pick-ups. When she is depleted, the best she gets from her employers is a "have another Red Bull" suggestion. It's a taxing, soul-sucking, "useless job" as Jude called it, the kind of job whose real usefulness in the grand scheme of things is marginal. As an escape from this hellish drudge, Angela has created a social media character named "Bobitza", as whom, while hidden behind a face filter, she waxes lyrically as a cuss-dripping, misogynist alpha male. And to halfway contrast, halfway enhance this image of present day Angela, Jude juxtaposes scenes from Angela Goes On (1981), a communist proletarian movie about an eponymous taxi driver and her search for a partner.

So there you go, layers. For those who have seen Babardeala cu bucluc (2021), we do not find ourselves on completely foreign territory here. The End of the World is also set in and around Bucharest and it captures the same aggressiveness that's emblematic to living and, especially, driving around the Romanian capital. My main issue with it was that it took satire to the point of caricature, in a demonstrative way that detached it from reality - even from its reality. The experience in Jude's latest is more consistent, finding harmony in dissonance, even if it doesn't always make for a perfect fit.

Aside from Angela's work-related travails, she has to deal with the impending exhumation of her grandparents, as the cemetery they were buried in had illegally annexed land to its property. Now, real-estate developers had reclaimed it and, naturally, luxury condos need some air to breathe. In what is perhaps the most straight-out comedic scene in the film, Angela meets with a representative of the developer who assures her that they are the good guys, covering not only relocation costs, but also theological approval. As she exits the building, we understand in part who Bobitza is - a representation of the number one capitalist model in Romania of the 90s, Bobby Ewing of Dallas.

This perverse, exploitative capitalism is at the core of the movie, as Angela's "auditions" feature people who have suffered work-related accidents at the Austrian company - and the company mind-bendingly want to put-together a clip with one of these people promoting use of helmets and compliance to health and safety procedures. All the while, ignoring their own culpability. As Jude succinctly put it when asked about the vulgarity of Angela's alter-ego, it's all just part of the contrast between explicit and implicit vulgarity, the latter being the use of discretionary power at will behind the fake veneer of corporate civility. Which act is more vulgar, he asks of us.

While there isn't so much going on in terms of story, almost every scene is rich in context and implications. A main cause for that is that Angela defies categorization, she is a person trying to make it, cultured, yet crude, moralistic, yet immoral, she's imperfect - played perfectly by Ilinca Manolache. It really is the kind of movie you can take apart for a while, making ever changing conjectures and discovering commentary on things from historical disconnects to critical posturing. Wouldn't we all like to go for a round of boxing with our enemies, Uwe Boll style?

But what makes Jude's latest especially stand out is its defiance for traditional structure and style. The juxtaposition of two age-divergent movies, the grainy black and white present-day and the beautifully restored and coloured communist propaganda piece, the mixing of narratives between the two, the fixed, engrossing shots contrasted with the vibrant distortion of the social media clips, a fluent rhythm broken up with a multi-minute composition of memorial crosses from the side of the road, and a final forty minute shot with as much off-camera action as on-camera. It's something else, really, an originality of vision that's simply an experience to watch, regardless of how much you like it.

At the heart of the movie is also that tension between what's proper and what isn't. Or, rather, between the appearance of both. What is the difference between classical music and "manele" (a type of Romanian popular music)? Between the grand vision of life and society that is written of in mission statements and the grindy, noisy, repetitive reality of their manifestation? In a perfect world, Do Not Expect Too Much of The End of the World should do to the final movement of Beethoven's 9th what Aftersun (2022) did to Under Pressure. It should forever break it, cursing the viewer with the plight of irreversible trauma.

Like any good movie, this one will not leave you indifferent. It finds excitement in unlikely places and delivers with a kind of spastic energy that's best incapsulated by its meta-world. There is a truth to it that cannot be denied, even in its moments that feel more like performance art than "factual" observation. Sure, it's not for everyone, not only because it can be uncomfortable in terms of content, but because it embraces a kind of otherness that requires some adjustment. That's one of the things we ask of movies, isn't it?

After deducting one star for over-the-top vulgarity, much of that from protagonist Angela's TikTok alter ego Bobita; and one more star for being way too long; this left eight stars to work with, and the film earned them all. My first impression of Angela was dim, but she was just a tough, bright cookie doing her own thing - mostly driving, apparently -- in rough circumstances. Terrific acting.

Can't say how well the "movie within a movie" device worked. I understand it was to provide both contrast and context, but after awhile it became intrusive and repetitive, like prolonged scenes of Angela's gum-chewing during relentless drives, and a wholly gratuitous sequence of highway fatality crosses. The scene at the end filming Ovidiu and his family is especially sharp, with quite a few lessons hidden in there.

Not exactly sure why, but the film overall reminded me of Fellini's Nights of Cabiria ... not for any obvious reasons, but a similar tone.

The ending was abrupt but appropriate and satisfying. Closing credits are wacky, not something I often see. Major credit too goes to whomever did the English subtitles: they were spot-on, very nuanced.

Not too sure about how it makes Bucharest look, though.

Some may find it discouraging to look upon the world with a robustly cynical outlook, yet, given prevailing conditions in the world today, it may sometimes be unavoidable, an attribute reflected in many contexts, including art and cinema. And that's just what Romanian writer-director Radu Jude has done in his latest feature outing, a biting, darkly satirical comedy-drama that lays bare many of the everyday frustrations that his countrymen experience in areas like politics, corruption and economic opportunities. The film tells this story through the experiences of Angela Raducani (Ilinca Manolache), an overworked, underpaid, sleep-deprived movie production assistant as she struggles to make it through her daily work routine, an unappreciated effort not unlike that thrust upon many contemporary Romanians. To compensate for the tedium of her career and to let off some considerable pent-up steam, Angela makes short videos of her own featuring a foul-mouthed, sexually provocative male alter-ego, Bobitja, who swears like a sailor and describes explicit erotic encounters that would make a porn star blush. She also wrestles with the many self-serving demands of her arrogant Austrian corporate sponsors and a bloated Romanian bureaucracy that proves ineffectual in resolving property ownership issues related to her family's cemetery plots. Moreover, the picture draws uncanny parallels in the living and working conditions experienced by the nation's present-day residents with those who lived under the Communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu in the 1980s, presented here through intercut thematically linked film clips from the 1982 Romanian melodrama "Angela merge mai departe" ("Angela Moves Forward"), the story of a taxi driver whose circumstances mirror those of the beleaguered PA. It all makes for quite an intriguing and engaging mix of story elements, one the holds viewer attention well for about two-thirds of the release, especially in its deliciously bawdy, ribald humor. However, with a 2:43:00 runtime, it becomes somewhat trying as a comedy (and as a movie overall), serving up an excess of almost everything. Unlike comparably long offerings such as "Triangle of Sadness" (2022), which manage to successfully sustain their humor for such a lengthy duration, this effort starts getting repetitive, running out of gas to keep propelling it forward, especially in the somewhat exasperating final half-hour. Like Jude's previous release, "Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn" ("Barbardeala cu bucluc sau porno balamuc") (2021), this outing definitely could have benefitted from some judicious editing, particularly in its endless footage of the protagonist driving through heavy Bucharest traffic. To the filmmaker's credit, "End of the World" deserves kudos for its irreverence and its ambitious inventiveness and willingness to try the untried, but this is yet another example of a project where the creator fails to kill his darlings, an undertaking that could have been accomplished successfully in lobbing off about 20 minutes of extraneous material, especially in the closing moments. This one is worth a look if you're willing to be patient with it, as that's essential to make your way through all the way to the end. But, if you don't go in with that attitude, you might be expecting too much from the end of the film.

Absolute film. This stunning protagonist takes us to inside the car and also into the reality of the romenian proletariat. Her daily vlogs as a man character on social media's make criticism uncomfortably funny.

Flashes of "Angela goes on" sometimes fit perfectly with romenians women's nowadays issues, especially as a car driver. On the other hand, at other times, it highlights the aberrant contrast behind different eras: "it's later than you think".

Personally, as a third world citizen, this universal theme brought up by the film touches me deeply. Government corruption, nonsense ideological fanaticism among people, and our impotence in the face of all of this.

Uncomfortable until the end and necessary.

DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD (2024). Radu Jude's caustic ramble about the state of mind of the Romanian public. Jude's film is intentionally messy and, seemingly, disorganized, but the filmmaker has a lot on his mind.

The main protagonist is Angela Raducani (Ilinca Manolache; quite remarkable) a production assistant on a safety video being produced locally for an Austrian client. She's required to drive around all over the area, seemingly the only P. A. on the production. She interviews accident victims who are 'auditioning' to be the spokesperson for the industrial short. Jude intersperses extended clips from a 1981 Romanian film (ANGELA MOVES ON) about a taxi driver also named Angela. Jude sets up the contrast by saying his film is in 'conversation' with the earlier one. The two Angelas meet when the P. A is doing her vetting interviews. The older Angela is played by the same actress from the earlier film (Dorina Lazar).

Jude uses various film and digital techniques (including aspect ratio) throughout. Slow motion, freeze frames and other tricks of the trade. Angela blows off steam by adopting a male alter ego - Bobita that she posts on social media, complete with cellphone camera filters. "Bobita" is an extreme misogynist in the Andrew Tate mold spouting the most vile rants imaginable. The movie is leisurely paced, but never dull. One fun side story involves Director Uwe Boll (playing himself) who is in town shooting a low budget sci-fi flick; Boll is introduced thusly: "He beats people up!"

Jude's themes coalesce, more or less, in the final hour. The great German actress Nina Hoss (TAR, PHOENIX) arrives in Bucharest playing the Austrian producer, Doris Goethe. Angela picks her up and drives her to a hotel. The next day is the shoot which Jude films as a remarkable 40 minute single take. The victim's family (including the now elderly taxi driver Angela) is placed at the scene of his unfortunate accident on a dreary, rainy afternoon. Of course, the company responsible doesn't really want to hear from the man (Ovidiu Pirsan) as much as spread their propaganda using the 'victims' as human props. As the family sit in a dank alley in a light rain, they are told what to say and do over the phone by Doris as she sits comfortably in her well apportioned hotel.

Jude is fully committed to his vision of Romania as a sad sack society. There's a mention of road so dangerous that citizens have put up crosses for those that have perished because of the government's indifference (it's a long montage). The nation is now 'free' from the Iron Curtain, but, it's leaders, including the much reviled Nicolae Ceausescu, have left deep wounds in the Romanian psyche. Being an EU member has only magnified the country's status on the lowest rung of that ladder. The two Angelas may represent two different generations, but, are their circumstance that much different? They each believe the "End of the World" is happening - and don't expect it to be a happy one.

DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD is currently streaming on Mubi and is available for rental.

Angela is a movie Production Assistant in Bucharest, overworked and underpaid. Romanians seem to be suffering from inflation, blamed on the Ukrainian war. In this story, she is part of the team shooting a workplace safety video for a multinational compamy.

In day 1, she is frantically racing around (on streets where the other drivers are crazy), interviewing injured workers who are potential subjects, doing other errands, and squeezing in some personal time as well. This part is shot in black and white, to distinguish it from the color sequences, which illustrate the back story of some of the characters of the day, and also her alter ego, a sex-obsessed bald man. However, at 2-3/4 hours I find this extraneous, plus there is an overlong sequence of the crosses along a road memorializing traffic accident victims. Deduct one star for this "creativity".

For day 2 (before lunch break), the selected subject (and selected family members) are assembled at the site of the accident for the shoot. Contrasting with the previous day, this is basically a fixed camera situation, assuming that this is the camera that is shooting the actual corporate video. Complications happen, including the "big boss" demanding his own creative idea - not prevously expressed.

The film is a moderately interesting slice of life in Romania, and it is up to the viewer as to whether the creative touches add (according to some critics) or subtract (according to me) to its enjoyment.

Wow. I just finished watching this film and could not get enough. It is a slow burn to start off but as I watched I found myself getting pulled in. This is the story of an overworked woman, who travels from place to place capturing videos of the survivors of nearby, workplace accidents. The most compelling story awards the family a cash prize and commercial spot about workplace safety. In the end, the participants and the rigors of the process are skewered answering questions about capitalism, voyuerism, status, and the results of hardwork. The main character is an endurance champion. The writer and director brought to my mind Proust, capturing the day to day human condition in such a realistic way. I did not want this movie to end. Hopefully there's a 5 hour directors cut out there.

There's something very natural about Ilinca Manolache in this gritty and occasionally quite funny story of "Angela". She seems to spend much of the film driving her car around the streets of Bucharest garnering interviews from the victims of industrial accidents. Why? Well apparently some Austrians are making a safety film and they want a real person to go on screen advocating the common sense of adhering to the rules! Don't go pole vaulting over a volcano kind of thing. As she becomes increasingly weary, being sent from one end of the city to the other, she encounters some of the more moronic road users and that allows the dialogue to get ripe and lively - much to the chagrin of her mother. Anyway, eventually she alights on one would-be contributor who seems quite happy to do whatever is required for his 500 Euro fee - but it's at this point, and through the subsequent quite scathingly delivered production process that I found the whole thing pretty much ground to an halt - despite the briefest contribution from Uwe Boll. The pithy and characterful "Angela" becomes trapped in a repetitive series of similar scenarios - interspersed by some foul-mouthed and sexually charged rants from her alter-ego video blogger "Bobita" and the odd deferential reference to the recent death of HM Queen Elizabeth II. Meantime - and these scenes are in a nicely photographed-to-look-dated colour, we flit back to the Romania of Ceausescu where "Angela Moves On" - a fictitious film from 1981 depicts the life of a taxi driver who finds her daily grind not dissimilar to the modern day story. Misogamy and sexism thriving unfettered! Unfortunately, after about an hour I was really struggling to stay interested. It all went from being entertainingly plausible to overly and rather unpleasantly contrived and at just shy of 2¾ hours long, it really does lose it's way just once too often. To be fair to the writers, the pace of the dialogue is thick and fast and it does take a few swipes at the modern day opt-in culture, but we spend far too much time in her car - she changes gear a lot - and I'm afraid I really rather gave up. It could easily have lost an hour, tightened up what's quite a fun and politic premiss and been much better. As it is, it's all just a bit disappointing.

Angela, the overworked and underpaid production assistant, drives through chaotic Bucharest, trying to film castings for a commercial. Completely stressed out and exhausted, she desperately seeks a few minutes of peace, but her boss keeps calling, telling her to drink a strong coffee or a Red Bull and to keep working. The ringtone on Angela's phone when work calls is "Ode to Joy" - the EU anthem.

A film that couldn't be more cynical. It's an authentic critique of society and capitalism, wrapped in bold, crude situational humor. The West-especially Austria, the country that in recent years blocked Romania from joining the Schengen Area-is constantly ridiculed.

It's not common to see a Romanian film that is so critical of the present, as most tend to condemn the past under Ceausescu and embrace capitalism without much questioning. Radu Jude shows that those days are likely over, as things haven't improved much for Romanians. Quite the opposite. Nature is being destroyed for private companies, cities are drowning in traffic, intellectuals are leaving the country, and poverty is everywhere.

This dark comedy is, for me, a highlight of the year. It makes you think, but most of all, it makes you laugh out loud.

What a great piece of systemic propaganda! This is how it's done, people. A successful propaganda is never blatant, never shoved down your throat. You should add interpolated words/phrases among seemingly irrelevant dialogue or monologue. This movie ticks all the boxes.

Still, i'll be fair. Because i am a moviegoer not a propagandist. First of all, its running time is pure self- sabotage. There is not enough good material to support a 163 minutes movie. Director should learn a thing or two about the lost art of editing. "Lost" regarding to him of course, because every other director in the History of Cinema knows well that a movie should be well edited. I'll be honest though, it's less boring as it seems. It should have been at least 30 minutes shorter but overall, i liked it. As long as you know what to expect. This is an arthouse comedy drama. Not too dark to be called a dark comedy. The whole movie is technically a comment about sociopolitical issues. When it comes to criticizing capitalists, it was almost great. It's still propaganda obeying to the modern Elite's narration but still, there were many things here which i liked.

It's a clever movie as long as you are a patient viewer and you know what this is about. The leading actress was amazing. In general, there were good acting performances here. And pace was good for a 163 minutes movie.

In any case, lower your expectations : The only reason this has a 94/100 Metascore, it is because it's propaganda. I would have rated it higher if it wasn't. 7/10 is a more proper rating if you agree with everything Pro-Regime Media are brainwashing you night and day. But i don't, so i must remove 1 star. And that's because i am sparing. I should remove more stars.

6/10.

Radu Jude's Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World is a blistering indictment of modern capitalism, disguised as a workplace comedy. The film follows an overworked production assistant tasked with creating a safety video for a multinational corporation, only to have the project derailed by a whistleblower's exposé.

What follows is a chaotic, darkly humorous descent into the heart of corporate greed and societal indifference. Jude's film is a masterclass in satire, using absurd situations and deadpan delivery to expose the systemic failures that underpin our world. The pacing is relentless, mirroring the frenetic pace of modern life, and the performances are uniformly excellent.

While the film's runtime is lengthy, it never feels indulgent. Every scene serves a purpose, contributing to the overall message. It's a challenging watch, but a deeply rewarding one. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World is essential viewing for anyone interested in exploring the complexities of contemporary society.

Angela (Ilinca Manolache) is an overworked, underpaid movie production assistant who drives around Bucharest in order to arrange a 'safety at work' video.

The film is a perfect exposé on the modern economy and all of its exploitations and deceptions. The video production within the film is funded by a company whose purpose seems to be glossing over the liability of companies where work injuries occurred. There is a very special scene involving an injured man and his family at home.

The film's style is interesting though some scenes are over-long as is the film overall at two and three-quarters hours. This is unfortunate as its message is strong and relevant and could have been more effective with a shorter length.

• dbamateurcritic.

The movie makes you think about some issues present in Romanian society (and elsewhere) but the director could have cut the film by half (from 2h and 45 minutes ?!) and still make his point.

The weak parts of the movie are the endless car scenes where the driver is just stuck in traffic. One or two scenes like that is enough really. We get it. But no, half the film is shot in the car. Another weak part is the 4 minutes of showing christian crosses on the Bucuresti-Buzau road. It felt like an amateur way of trying to create emotion. Really there is no need for long scenes like this.

The movie is strong with the social satire and it manages to do that in a subtle, non-direct way. That is the only good part that I see. Maybe also some funny scenes with Bobita and excellent acting of the main character.

I live in Romania and this is the most acurate and realistic movie I've seen in my life and I watched over 2000 movies. I truly hope that life outside of Romania has another perspectives and values but I suspect that this toxic recipe is applied in all the "modern" countries of the world.

The movie captures in a perfect way the hoax of a "modern" life, lived in a big city. Deppresion, anxiety, regrets, fake smiles, competition, survival, degeneration and destruction. The parralel drawn between the modern days presented in black and white and the communist times presented in colour mark a huge contrast between an organic way of life and this jungle we dare to call civilisation today.

A huge masterpiece and an extremely harsh and realistic account of today's "society." Anyone who is more bothered by swearing than by corruption, ignorance and obedience is by definition a modern slave. This is the true message of the movie. It's time to stop exchanging fake smiles for money and status and start being human again.

I don't know what foreigners would understand from this film - there is so much lost in translation - but it's a quintessentially Romanian film. Filmed and presented deadpan, it's actually full of sarcastic wit and social satire, all while following a young female production assistant in Romania running errands and driving around. I guess you have to be in the mood to appreciate it and I am glad I was, although at times I would have just sped it up. It's low budget, but very carefully crafted.

It's also a rather experimental film, as it has random scenes from a.1982 Romanian film, also featuring a female driver, random musings and even a full scene in which nothing else is shown for minutes other than road side crosses. You've been warned.

Bottom line: innovative, a bit too stretched out, but very well done film. I am Romanian, yet I did watch it with English subtitles. I am afraid without understanding the native Romanian language for both dialog and music lyrics and the cultural context in general, you might miss quite a lot.

On the surface, this initially appears to be a random film of random, often profane, interactions around Bucharest. And to spice things up, there are also what initially appear to be random clips from a 40 year old Romanian film spliced into the flow of things.

But there is a lot going on here. Themes of oppression and oppressor, the dark side of capitalism and it's willing/grudging supporters at all levels, misogyny, art's need for money and money's corruption of art plus no doubt a dozen other layers.

Ding the film a wee bit for running a bit too long. But hang in there. The last few scenes are the best, including the amazing apparently one shot final scene. Watch it with friends and family and then be ready to discuss.

The second "Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World" was over, I went straight to my top ten favorite movie list for the year and added this film to it. I don't remember what got bumped, but no matter. Whatever it was, it wasn't as good as this.

I love films like this, that don't seem to be about anything but really are about everything. Ilinca Manolache is simply sensational as a put-upon assistant for a film production company driving around traffic-riddled Bucharest, Romania, doing whatever she's asked to do. She's pretty sweet and mild-mannered while doing her job, but her rage and frustration finds vent in an outrageous Internet persona she inhabits to post rude and crude videos on social media. The film is about what a dumpster fire Romania is, but really it's about what a dumpster fire everywhere is. I mean, I live in the U. S., so, come on.

Humanity spends a lot of time angsting about what the end of the world and the collapse of civilization will look like, and of course we imagine it as some sort of cataclysmic event. But what if the end of the world, or least the human world, is happening before our very eyes? What if humanity doesn't go down in a burst of flame but rather gradually peters out, worn down by the relentlessness of being exploited by a grubby, dumb, angry, money-obsessed culture?

If this movie is about any one thing, it's about the search for signs of intelligent life in a universe that seems to offer it in short supply.

Grade: A+

Mankind seems to be at some kind of teetering point of what we want the future of our species to be. We are at the pinnacle of our technological capabilities while arguably scraping the barrel of our moral fortitude. These are dangerous times, and they are also unfortunately too exhausting to tackle head on. Especially with many pulling in opposite directions. No film has captured this crisis more succinctly than Romanian Director Radu Jude's Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World.

The plot structure is important. Angela is a production assistant who spends long days trapsing all over Eastern Europe interviewing people who have been involved in workplace accidents whose testimonies will be compiled into a safety video for an Austrian furniture multinational. As a side hustle, she also creates lewd TikTok content in the conservative chauvinist vein of a more vulgar Andrew Tate that grow more popular as they grow more distasteful. It is somewhat loose road movie for much of the film, but really starts to settle in during the final third, where we start to see the production of the safety video come into focus.

Two long and immediately iconic scenes eventually emerge. The first is the initial production meeting where the video staff meets with their rich Austrian client via zoom, where the suffering of the actual interviewees is callously nitpicked by a team of dispassionate parties. The second is the nearly thirty-minute final scene oner as a man has his testimony filmed on the site of the man's life altering accident, family warmly by his side. Over the course of the shoot, the man is massaged and gently coerced into changing details and intent of every sentence of his own story in service of the company who is ultimately at fault for him being paralyzed. The man has the sympathy of the more proletariat film workers, but ultimately not their support. After every wincing concession the man makes, we feel ourselves being driven further from integrity and empathy. Angela takes the opportunity during a production time out to make yet another crass video. "If you can't beat them, join them" is the mood.

The movie is very funny. The pessimistic satire would be enjoyable if it weren't so effective in proving its thesis. Do Not Expect Too Much From the End Of The World is perfectly titled. The world does not end with a bang or a whimper. It ends with reluctant, self-serving, sarcastic, but expressly written consent.

It had points to make about exploitation and challenges of working life under oppressive conditions. However, it became tedious and unnecessarily long; it points could have been made more directly without repeating them almost endlessly. It became boring in the end. The crassness of the P. A's alter ego character for her social media filming seemed unnecessarily so and was a turnoff. Maybe they were trying to show anger, but it was incredibly vulgar. Not a prude, but like to see people make their point more elegantly. The switching between color and black and white for different characters was interesting.

Ok!!! So what's the hype about this lethargic film?? Nothing worked for me ...I was bored to death while i was watching people walk out of the theatre and half of them sleeping.. So boring...so taxing.. And the boredom is not coming out of the creativity of the film but because it's so tiring to watch it...N what was the unnecessary obsession of the black and white???

Only 2 scenes were decent,one when the production meeting is happening and the other with the director when she makes her video with him .. Apart from that , even if u sleep during the film and then wake up u will only find the woman driving nonstop and I have missed nothing...There are other ways to show what u want to show ..and it's not the only way .to bore the audience to death...arrgghhhh.

Professional movie reviewers must love watching a show where there is no predictable narrative or superhero or visual splendour. Add in a laboured thematic of the lack of progress made for the people of Romania (and by extension everybody) expressed in four or five different expositions and the paid critics are hooked.

For someone who has popped along to the cinema to be presented with something new entertaining and original this piece is probably only one out of three. The most clear message is that Bucharest does not look like a fun place to visit because all its residents are consumed by the fatalism that is shouted by the movie's title. I left thinking the self indulgence of the filmmaker was probably the reason why scenes are repeated and stretched in length only to read that this cinematic onanism was actually a love letter to the criticerati.