I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Calin Peter Netzer's very somber film 'Child's Pose' is a dark character study of the relationship between a mother/wife and her family. I'm sure we all know someone in our family who tries to control every little detail in everyone's lives, and will go to the end of the world to find out the smallest details on their loved ones. At times, this can come across as comical, but most of the time it comes across as an annoyance, which can scar any relationship, even though the 'patriarch' of the family has good intentions.This Romanian film sure made a buzz recently at certain film festivals around the world, even scoring some awards. Hell, it was even selected for to compete in the Oscar race, but was ultimately not nominated for the Foreign category. Needless to say, 'Child's Pose' is receiving some high critical acclaim, which currently holds a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But, this film is not a feel-good two hours. There doesn't seem to be one good and decent person amongst our cast of characters throughout most of the run-time. Sure there is a hint of these characters being redeemed, but it is very subtle and too short, given the circumstances of the events that occur.We see the film through the eyes of Cornelia Keneres (Luminita Gheorghiu, excellent), a 60-year old family woman, who is seen smoking a cigarette with her sister, talking about a man who doesn't love her, verbally abuses her, and even has pushed her out of a car. We soon find out that this is not an ex-lover, but her only son, Barbu (Bogdan Dumitrache). Cornelia lives a life of luxury with her husband, who "is like putty" in her hands at all times. Even to a fault. Barbu seems successful and lives with his girlfriend Carmen and he daughter from a previous relationship, which Cornelia turns her nose up at. Cornelia and her son's relationship is not a good one to say the least, as Cornelia is still trying to dictate and control his life, even though he is in his mid-thirties. She even goes as far as to ask her maid to spy on her son and give her information. Enjoying the high-society perks, Cornelia is abruptly told that her son has been in an automobile accident where he killed a young teenage boy crossing the highway.Corneila and her sister switch gears and head to the police station where Barbu is being questioned. We see Cornelia quickly verbally attack the police for questioning her son without a lawyer and even tell hims what to write in his statement as not to incriminate himself, even though he was driving too fast. Instead of justice and truth, Cornelia will pay off any witnesses and even police to prevent her son from doing prison time. Meanwhile the family of the deceased kid lives in the poor part of town, doesn't have any powerful influences, and are pretty angry at the whole accident. As the story progresses, we see Cornelia push her family away even more, especially her son, as she tries to steer this accident from involving any wrong doing of Barbu.We quickly see that she is not the only one looking to bribe people as the witness wants to extort her for $100k, and even the police want to use her to keep things quiet. All of this is to prove in her own way that she loves her son, which is not accepted or returned. This leads up to a very emotional climax where Cornelia and Barbu are supposed to meet with the family of the deceased. Netzer is trying to tell us a story about redemption, forgiveness, and family. Be it warts and all. But there are times where things get a bit awkward. For instance when Cornelia in her nighties massages with lotion her son's back. The camera angles and pacing here really seemed like it was going into a sexual territory that I didn't want it to go into. Luckily it didn't, but there was some definite tension there.Luminita and Bogdan are excellent in their roles, specifically Luminita. Even though she is mostly the antagonist in this movie, we still feel for her. Her struggle to let go of her son and take his verbal abuse is shown in her body language and eyes perfectly. It's a very realistic portrayal of a flawed upper class family life. Despite a slow pace and very somber feel, 'Child's Pose' is a good film.

The most intense scene comes at the end when the mother meets with the parents of the dead boy. When the mother of the driver (Cornelia) tries to persuade the mother of the dead boy that her own son is a nice kid, that he did certain good things in childhood etc, one has to ask, How cruelly insensitive can one person be toward another? The scene is more honest than typical reconciliation scenes in sentimental movies in which "two people come together over their shared grief" in a clichéd way. Since we know that the mother (Cornelia) has done everything to exculpate her guilty and irresponsible son -- including bribery of police, damaging sworn evidence, bribery of witnesses, and pressure on politicians -- we can not sympathize with her. At least that's the way I understood this scene, the climax of the movie. The sadness Cornelia feels because she is estranged from her rotten son can not excuse her criminal actions. The rotten son's brief handshake with the grieving father is very minor compared with the cruel and illegal actions of the mother. This is a realistic and honest film, even if it's not shot or sound-recorded with great beauty.

a film about solitude. and truth moment. about love and error and need to escape from yourself. touching. profound. strange for the manner to present ordinary events in a direct and cold manner.in fact, a perfect puzzle. Luminița Gheorghiu does a splendid role who reflects image of many Romanian mothers. remarkable performance of Vlad Ivanov and Adrian Titieni impresses. basis the script, not a surprise from Răzvan Rădulescu. it is a cruel film for the science to reflect reality in large , clear slices. and for final taste. a film about duty. in its complete form. as shadow of fears and expectations and deep gestures who breaks the words. almost an experience. or only a ladder circle. must see it ! not for cast. not for prizes. not for quality of another Romanian/Eastern movie. but for its role of seed. seed of few impressions.

What would you do if your only son caused an accident in which a 14- year-old-boy died? For Cornelia, a successful Bucharest architect, the answer is clear: she'll fight and she's willing to do everything it takes to keep her son out of prison. At this year's Berlin Film Festival, Child's Pose was the consensus winner of the Golden Bear, the festival's award for the best film. In it, director Calin Peter Netzer portrays an overbearing mother and a member of Romania's upper classes, for whom she and her sense of family come first and then there is nothing for a very long time.At the same time, Child's Pose provides a chilling glimpse into a society in which everything can be managed if you know the right people and have sufficient amounts of money. With its in-your-face documentary-like style dominated by the hand-held camera which is always close but also still and distant enough to allow the viewer long looks into those faces, particularly that of Luminita Gheorghiu's Cornelia. Everything that needs be known is in this face: the hardness, the lack of compassion of a society in which the stronger always wins, the longing for a closeness this world and the laws governing it no longer allow, the scars it leaves.Cornelia is a control freak. In the beginning we see her interrogating her janitor Clara who also cleans her son's apartment. Matter-of-factly but with an almost diabolical determination that borders on the obsessive. When, for minutes on end we see her ploughing through her son's apartment, her loneliness, her isolation and her compensation through the stifling grip she keeps on her son become almost unbearable. This is also true later when she is left alone, motionless and helpless, in her spotless kitchen, a glass of Grand Marnier being her only companion. But then immediately she becomes the efficient, unscrupulous organizer who calmly persuades her son to change his testimony, coerces a witness into co-operating, uses her connections to smooth things regardless of the victims. When, at the very end, tears roll as she tries to convince the boy's family to drop charges, the question how much of this is real and if it is, who is she crying for, has become unsolvable.But Cornelia is no monster: the scariest part of the film is how perfectly she fits into this world, how acceptable all that she does is: to her husband, her friends, even the police. If her son rebels, it is against her overbearing nature, not her questionable tactics. This son, too, is a scarred individual, a selfish loner who needs to be if not at the center of attention than at least at the center of his world. Bogdan Dumitrache plays this Barbu as a childish, weak, hostile, cowardly man who is way too similar to his mother for his own good, product and symbol of a society in which money can buy you anything. Child's Pose shows how a corrupt world that has lost its balance and its center deform those who live in it, particularly, those who think they rule it, those who built t in the first place. But there is hope: in the quiet dignity of the boy's parents and maybe even in that quietly improvised gesture Barbu musters up in the end and which we watch from a distance, from inside a car. A small hint of an ultimate emancipation, a tiny act of growing up, almost imperceptible, but even more earth- shattering for it.Child's Pose is a relentlessly honest film that keeps us watching when we want to turn our eyes away, that provides an unfiltered, direct, in- your-face perspective on a world so shiny on the surface and so hollow beneath. And it is a chilling portrait of people struggling and failing to avoid loneliness, longing for each other, but drifting apart the more they're clinging to the other. Calin Peter Netzer's naturalistic style is far from heavy, it never imposes itself on the film, it forces us to keep looking, to stay close to this woman fighting like a lioness for her child while overstepping all lines of what we might call morality, asking us what we would do, where our limits are and how much we'd weigh morals when all we care about is at stake. This Cornelia is so far and so near at the same time. A chilling, moving film not at all easy to forget.http://stagescreen.wordpress.com/