This is the first un-Romanian Romanian movie. It's the first Romanian film, after the '89 revolution, not built on social themes, on the subject of the Securitate officers or about how bad life is in Romania. It's the film we all needed like air: without intellectualized-psychological-metaphysical ambitions, without hidden metaphors born out of the dire fear of not being praised by critics. It's simply a film about the husband-wife relationship, about the father and husband responsibility versus the desire to party with old friends. "Boogie" is also the first movie that may very well have been American, French or Uruguayan. It doesn't matter it takes place in Romania; it doesn't exhibit the national character, it doesn't take apart the mechanism of the Wallachian soul, it doesn't realize the radiography of the Romanian society. It is simply a film about people in their 30's who try to reconcile marriage and partying, freedom and responsibilities, teenage and adulthood.
There are also shortcomings (but infinitely less important than the film's qualities): the annoying compromise aimed at pleasing the critics (that is the missing end, or conclusion, of the film, which, it seems, automatically marks it as an "art film"), generally speaking the paradoxical lack of sense of the movie (which seemed more of an episode of a good series), also casting Anamaria Marinca - one of the few finest Romanian actresses, who plays sensationally, but seems to be overqualified for this role.
Back to the qualities of the film: they all played exceptionally well; special mentions for the always excellent Mimi Branescu and for the funny as hell Roxana Iancu; dialogs are great; you even get to laugh heartily (a rare thing when it comes to Romanian films); it is never boring, not for one second; and it has some metaphors, too :)))) A special mention for the voluptuous pleasure with which the writers have the characters utter brand names, against the nowadays dimwitted trend of eliminating, to the absurd, their pronunciation at TV. It's a good thing the director comes from advertising ;) I would like "Boogie" to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship - between the Romanian movie maker and the public. The beginning has been made...
