Just perfect...

Crappy film

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Those who like action in their films (as one reviewer well put it: guns, paedophiles, crazy driving, genius scientists, blacks and drugs, stock exchange, apocalypse, Bruce Willis saving the world, Asian crime gangs, etc --things that have no place in Romanian society)- will not like this film. I confess I found it a little boring until the final emotional scene where the actress playing the wife gives an astonishing portrayal of grief, which I will never forget. Utterly convincing. The rest is a deliberately mundane account of adultery between two very uninteresting, i.e. normal, people, who obviously enjoy, whether they know this or not, the thrill and the deception -- playing their pre-ordained roles in the time-honoured way of us human beings. One can admire the artistry with which the mundane is conscientiously portrayed but asking at the same time 'Do I need to see this? I prefer Bruce Willis'. The saving grace, for me, was, as I have said, the betrayal scene and the subsequent reaction of the wife. The other two are really no more than ciphers. The husband is completely without charm,vigour or grace, whomever he is with and the mistress is just that, and no better for being a professional (dentist). So film buffs may rave, while I acknowledge the qualities of the film, but say that it is not really the sort of material which I like to spend 90 minutes of my timer with. Correction: true, but that actress added something to my life in the last 15 minutes of the film.

The Romanian film "Marti, Dupa Craciun" (2010) was shown in the United States with the title, "Tuesday, After Christmas." The movie is co-written and directed by Radu Muntean.Many movies show female full frontal nudity, so the fact that this occurs in this movie is no great surprise. What is surprising is that the film opens with two of the principals in bed. They have obviously just made love, and what we hear and see is their casual, languid talk right afterward. The woman has no reason to cover herself, so we see the nudity within the first minute or two of the film. Definitely different.The man, Paul, is played by Mimi Branescu. (Apparently Mimi can be a man's name in Romania.) He looks and acts like an Eastern European George Clooney, although he's not as handsome as Clooney. We learn that the woman, played by Maria Popistasu, is Raluca, who has been having an affair with Paul for months. She is certainly young and beautiful. (In fact, all of her is beautiful, as we learn in the first few minutes of the film.) What sets Raluca apart from most "other women" is that she's a dentist. (I can't remember ever seeing a movie where one of the women actors is a dentist.) In fact, it was through dentistry that she and Paul met, because Paul's daughter is her patient. Mirela Oprisor plays Adriana, Paul's wife. She too is very beautiful, although that aspect of her appearance is played down in the movie. She too is intelligent, and she loves Paul.That's the basic plot of the film. Paul has to decide. It's Christmas, and, in the context of the film, one of the women is going to get Paul for a Christmas present, and one is going to get left by Paul as her present.The film proceeds almost like a documentary. We meet Raluca's mother, Paul's parents, Adriana's sister, and some family friends. Paul and Adriana take their daughter to Raluca's clinic. Obviously, Paul and Raluca are exquisitely aware of the awkwardness of the situation, but, equally obviously, Adriana is not.All of these essentially normal activities take place with the clock ticking--in Paul's mind and in ours. Either way, this is going to end badly for someone. We just don't know who that someone will be, and what will happen after Paul decides. It's not a great movie if you want violent action or broad dramatic strokes. It is a great movie if you want to see a portrayal of normal people in an all-too-normal situation.I enjoyed this movie and recommend it. The only weakness is that it wasn't clear to me what qualities Paul had that would make both women want him as their partner. He's attractive enough, apparently virile enough, and fairly well off financially. However, Raluca knows he's cheating on his wife. What makes her think he won't cheat on her? Adrianna knows that he's away a lot, and, even when he's there, he's not particularly loving or caring. Still, there it is. Two women want him, and only one will have him.We saw this film at the excellent Dryden Theatre at George Eastman House in Rochester. It will work well on DVD, because all of the important scenes take place indoors. I think it's definitely worth finding and seeing.

What I loved most about this movie is it's realism. The actors give a great performance and it's just the way it's supposed to be. Everything feels real, the arguing, the conversations, the situations. It all flows naturally and you can relate to the characters and think: "wow, I've been there," or "I've definitely seen that before." The tension, the fights between Paul and his wife are the real thing. Drama is not forced, it's not stupid, etc...I do not know if a non-Romanian viewer will feel the same but I thought this movie portrayed life exactly as it is, without gloss or forced sub-plots, and that is very rarely seen. It may be a cultural thing however. Probably American culture is very different , and that's why guns, pedophiles, crazy driving, genius scientists, blacks and drugs, stock exchange, apocalypse, bruce willis saving the world, Asian crime gangs, etc (things that have no place in Romanian society) never feel real to me.Anyway, I'm sure this movie will not feel real only to Romanians, but to many other peoples around the globe.Btw, there is a user review by mmguica (from the United States) in which he/she says: "The characters had incredibly little depth." I totally disagree. Let's take the main character. There is not much depth shown, that is true, but I(and I'm sure other Romanians) instantly understand the character, He is a middle class man working hard and trying to bring good money. There is not much to him because he is a normal Romanian. He is not excessive, he is not crazy, gay, unstable, dramatic. He is a normal, emotionally stable man that's trying to support a household. And there are millions like him.

When you saw the title you must think there must be something about Christmas ! Wrong...just a good title with no major connection with Christmas ! If you're not Romanian i think it's hard to see the mediocrity of language, regular life, normal behavior. Long takes seems to prove that ... !If you have a choleric sparkle temper you will not like this movie but i'm sure that critics will love it because i see this movie like a statement, a manifest, a counteraction against today movie industry. It's what we Romanians call "like a dry joke" ... i guess you'd say black humor. It's like when you expect a superhero to save the world he's hit by a bus. If you expect the extraordinary you will not get it. Very good acting ! But do we look at movies to see something ordinary ?