Review: ‘Tuesday, After Christmas’
One of Chris Rock's best standup routines involves something that's just about impossible to describe on a family website, but let's just say that he discusses the important differences between a long-term committed relationship and a passionate fling. One offers a steady, loving bond that lasts a lifetime; in the other, the sex is better. Rock's routine is about the difficulty of combining stability and passion in your love life, a theme that sometimes pops up in movies about infidelity like "Unfaithful." But the Romanian film "Tuesday, After Christmas" tackles the subject in a unique way, showing us a man caught between two women he loves very much. He really didn't mean to start an affair; it just happened.
The man is Paul (Mimi Branescu), and when the movie starts he's in bed with Raluca (Maria Popistasu), his much younger mistress who he's been involved with for about five months. They have such terrific chemistry that you assume Paul's home life must be terrible, but then we see him out with his wife, Adriana (Mirela Oprisor), and they too have a great rapport, although she doesn't know about Raluca, obviously. But Paul's happy balancing act is about to hit a snag: Christmas is coming up, and Raluca will be going out of town without him. He's happy being around his wife and young daughter during the holidays, but he likes having her around too. Even though he'd be perfectly content not having to make a choice between the two women, the time is coming soon when he might have to.
Like several recent celebrated Romanian films ("The Death of Mr. Lazarescu," "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" and "Police, Adjective"), "Tuesday, After Christmas" (which opens in New York on Wednesday) tells a deceptively simple story in a lifelike way. There are no juicy plot twists or moments of high drama. (Even the film's one scene with screaming has an almost humdrum quality to it.) By using this approach, director Radu Muntean is trying to strip away the emotional fireworks to instead very methodically examine why people feel torn between commitment and excitement.
In the typical Hollywood version of this movie, the filmmaker would tilt our allegiance one way or the other, but Muntean makes all three characters layered and compelling so that we see precisely why Paul would be in love with each woman. There's no judgment about Paul's infidelity; it's neither good nor bad that he's having this affair. It's just something that happened. Even better, "Tuesday, After Christmas" makes you believe that Paul's love for each woman is genuine. The guy doesn't have a mean bone in his body: Sure, infidelity is wrong, but, if nobody gets hurt, is he really doing anything so terrible?
Muntean gets great performances from his cast that are incredibly natural and low-key. One of the hallmarks of this new crop of Romanian films is that they emphasize average, everyday characters, which requires performances that are gripping without being flashy. The greatest compliment you can give this style of acting is to say that it doesn't feel like acting, and all three cast members embody that spirit, giving their roles a universal, empathetic tone. These characters are so common they don't seem to realize they're in a movie starring them.
If the best of Romanian cinema elevates the mundane to the level of art by focusing on the basic desires and fears we all share, the risk is that such an approach won't fully transcend the clichés of whatever genre or theme being explored. And as nicely observed as much of "Tuesday, After Christmas" is, the film still has a few melodramatic moments that don't entirely work. But even then Muntean hits on just the right final note for his subtle examination of love versus lust. If one of the reasons we go to the movies is to watch characters do things we ourselves don't have the guts to do, then "Tuesday, After Christmas" is not recommended to those considering flings -- not because it has a bad outcome but because the outcome is very much open to interpretation. What is clear is that even though you may think it's quite fine to be in love with two women, they may not feel the same.
Grade: B+
