Child's Pose (2013)

Drama

Director: Cãlin Peter Netzer
Writers: Razvan Radulescu, Cãlin Peter Netzer
Starring: Luminita Gheorghiu, Bogdan Dumitrache, Natasa Raab, Ilinca Goia

"How far will a mother go to right a son's wrong?"

The top prize winner at the Berlin International Film Festival, Călin Peter Netzer's sharply crafted Child's Pose pivots on a riveting performance by Luminita Gheorghiu (Best Actress Nominee, European Film Awards) as a steely, well-to-do Bucharest architect determined to keep her 30-something deadbeat son out of jail after a deadly car crash. How far will she go to convince the police, eyewitnesses and even the victim's family that her son was not recklessly speeding? A spellbinding drama of social commentary and psychological realism, this caustic look into the corrupt heart of the Eastern European bourgeoisie twists into a brilliantly ambiguous study of obsessive motherly love. Savagely witty and utterly engrossing, Poziţia copilului was also the Official Romanian Entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards.

Plot summary from IMDb: Seeing a way to reassert control over her adult son's life when he faces manslaughter charges, an affluent Romanian woman sets out on a campaign of emotional and social manipulation to keep him out of prison, navigating the waters of power, corruption and influence. Child's Pose is based on the sense of loss of parents who have to send their children away-physically and psychologically. The parent-child relationship is re-assessed through a son in his 30s that wants to escape from his mother, who in turn wants to keep her adult son by her side. The mother's character is quite familiar, but this film is unique in that the director delicately portrays how the controlling mother wants to deny that her son is destined to leave her by following the characters' emotional flows and gazing at their twisted desires. Luminita Gheorghiu turns in an extraordinary performance in playing a mother struggling to "save" her son. Heading to the conclusion, the film shows that the unhealthy mother-son relationship is not that simple when it comes to matters of humane duty.

Awards: 13 wins & 6 nominations.
Runtime: 112 min
Not R