Immaculate (Imaculat) (2021 | Romania | 114 minutes | Monica Stan, George Chiper-Lillemark)
Romania’s official entry for Best International Film at this year’s Academy Awards opens with its protagonist Daria as she’s being interviewed as part of her intake process at a rehab clinic. She has a heroin addiction that she picked up from her boyfriend, who was sent to prison. Her parents sent her there with the hope she’ll kick her smack habit, as well as her junkie boyfriend. Daria is played by Romanian actress Ana Dumitrașcu and she’s quite good in this role.
Daria enters rehab as a naive eighteen year old. She’s best described as a “nice girl,” not too cynical about the world and still hopeful she’s got a bright future ahead of herself, which includes going to college, but also includes reuniting with her boyfriend. She still loves and pines for him even though her addiction was the direct result of a promise he made that he had no intention of keeping: he’d quit heroin if she became his girlfriend.
Entering rehab is like entering a whole new world for Daria. Most of the other patients are men and they all have their own desires towards her. Her naivete offers some protection against that because her fidelity to her boyfriend gives her the reason for offering resistance to their advances. She does try to see the good in everyone, telling one patient that she believed he’d stay sober after release even though he tells her that he’s looking forward to shooting up again shortly after he gets out because the high is stronger after withdrawals.
There have been few movies I’ve seen about addiction that I really enjoy because they often descend to melodrama, are emotionally manipulative, and/or focus on the triumph of sobriety, and this one is thankfully none of those things. Sometimes I thought Daria’s earnestness and credulity were a little too much for me, but Ana Dumitrașcu’s performance is so good and absorbing that a lot of the film’s faults can be overlooked. Moreover, there are some elements of a psychological thriller when we learn that a patient might have a connection to Daria’s imprisoned beau.
No one will ever call Immaculate the “feel good movie of the year,” and that’s a good thing. This is a movie full of empathy and anchored by a remarkable performance by a great, young actress. It doesn’t provide any easy solutions or answers and avoids a lot of the pitfalls films about addiction fall into. That works for me.
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Immaculate (Imaculat) makes its US premiere starting today as part of the Romanian Film Festival. It will be streaming through November 27 and tickets can be found here.