Ola, 17, lives in Warsaw with her mother and her severely disabled brother in a rather depressing flat. Her father left long ago for a construction job in Dublin. As the movie opens, Ola is in her third try for a drivers license; Father had promised her the funds to buy a car as soon as she was able to drive. Ola appears to be a typical rebellious, moody teenager: she talks back rudely to adults, smokes despite their disapproval, is given to occasional heavy drinking. She holds an on/off job in a carwash that barely provides her with pocket money and sees a car and a driving license as means to have some semblance of independence and freedom in an indifferent or downright hostile society.
One day Mother receives a phone call; Father has died in a work accident and it falls to Ola to travel to Dublin to arrange for Father's remains to be shipped to Poland. For the rest of movie (which has comedic touches) we witness Ola dealing with bureaucracy, trying to collect Father's compensation for the accident that cost his life and at the same time forming a picture of Father's unknown life in Ireland. Some of the people she has to deal with are sympathetic, others indifferent, still others try to help but are frustrated by the system or their own interests.
Without preaching, the film (whose original title translates into As Far Away from Here as Possible) exposes the cruel system whereby the lower echelon countries in the EU are unable or unwilling to provide jobs for their citizens thus forcing them to emigrate to the more developed countries. Once there, if lucky, they find work, however menial and for minimum wages, are reduced to substandard living accommodations (sometimes a bed in a crowded makeshift dormitory) and are exploited not only by the locals but sometimes by their own countrymen that have preceded them. Acting is first rate, notably by Sofia Stafiej (Ola)who on screen most of the time. Director Piotr Domalewsky puts his script on screen skillfully, alternating the poignant and the tragic with the black comedy coming from the bizarreness of Ola's tasks. A quality film.
