Another powerfully observed Romanian drama.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 1, 2014

Razvan Radulescu's screenplay is rich in irony and reversals, highlighting tensions between generations, and between the wealthy elite and the people whose lives are blighted by the elite's unthinking behaviour and desperation to cling to its status.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 1, 2014

Despite these effective touches, the film eventually becomes a bit monotonous: it's clear from very early on that Cornelia is a terrible person, but this doesn't stop Netzer from hammering home the point.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 19, 2014

A dark piece of neorealism - and a searing indictment of Eastern Europe's newly moneyed classes ...

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 11, 2014

A Romanian political allegory - in Romanian - might sound like tough sledding, but thanks to a searing performance by Luminita Gheorghiu, "Child's Pose" is anything but.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 3, 2014

Perversely engrossing thanks to Gheorghiu's performance as the queen of denial.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 20, 2014

Netzer crafts not only a chilling story of family dysfunction, but also an illuminating look into the corruption and decay of the Romanian bourgeoisie - without ever overplaying his hand. It all appears so effortless, when in fact it's so skillful.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Mar 20, 2014

A fascinating, troubling and finally controversial portrait of maternal anxiety at its most smotheringly neurotic.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 13, 2014

A tour-de-force performance from Gheorghiu carries this 2013 drama along, but Radulescu provides the fine edge, noting how this lioness cloaks her selfish crusade in a plea for humanity.

| Mar 6, 2014

It's a chilly story, shot with claustrophobic, close-in cameras, right up to its abrupt ending - in which a mother learns, to her horror, something about the kind of pain that isn't easily swept away.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 6, 2014

Of all the great monster mothers in cinema history, Cornelia Keneres (Luminita Gheorghiu, who sets the standard that other performances should be judged by this year) ranks high on the list.

| Mar 6, 2014

Calin Peter Netzer's terrific drama exemplifies many of the traits that have made the new wave of Romanian cinema so fecund.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 28, 2014

It's well worth seeing, both for its merciless anatomization of the country's post-Ceausescu social order and for Gheorghiu's stupendous central performance as a mother so monstrous she makes Medea look like a pushover.

| Feb 23, 2014

If Child's Pose fails to live up to its indie-intellectual veneer, it earns its keep through Gheorgiu, whose Cornelia is a triumph of subtle performance over crude conception.

| Feb 21, 2014

In the movie world, most national new waves don't last long. An exception is the Romanian renaissance, which has featured first-class movies now for more than a decade.

| Original Score: A | Feb 21, 2014

"Child's Pose" sounds like something simple and easy, but don't be fooled.

| Feb 20, 2014

When the stars are aligned-the writing and direction along with the stars in front of the camera-a movie can put the most appalling characters on display and still make them engrossing.

| Feb 20, 2014

[T]hrough it all, [Luminita] Gheorghiu finds the perfect pitch between a mother's love for her child and a kind of pathology.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 20, 2014

Child's Pose treads a delicate line between social horror and comedy-so much so that, as with Lazarescu, it's not always immediately apparent that the comedy is present.

| Feb 20, 2014

The movie creates its own tightening vice grip.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 20, 2014