Tuesday, After Christmas

Radu Muntea’s 2010 disarmingly simple family drama effortlessly echoes the rhythms of modern life that its deceptively heart-breaking finale lingers long after the film departs. Captured over a few fateful days in the Yuletide season, this emotionally resonant drama of a middle-class couple whose marriage is rocked by the husband's illicit affair with their daughter's dentist commendably depicts with deep empathy the plight of all three parties involved. Muntea eschews conventional melodrama, yet still yields similarly devastating results. Intense long takes draw attention to the complex emotions on display with each nuanced moments containing the central truths of a lifetime.