FJORD is a legal drama that puts the audience in the judge’s seat

Renate Reinsve as LISBET, Sebastian Stan as MIHAI in FJORD

The brilliance of FJORD, Romanian New Wave director Cristian Mungiu’s Palme d'Or-winning drama, is how well it disguises itself as a political film. The movie stars Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve as Mihai and Lisbet Gheorghiu, a Romanian-Norwegian couple (Mihai is Romanian, Lisbet is from Norway) who move to Lisbet’s hometown to raise their five children: two teens, Elia and Emmanuel, played by Vanessa Ceban and Jonathan Ciprian Breazu, two younger children, and a baby. However, the family’s conservative, evangelical beliefs ruffle feathers in the progressive village, and when Elia comes to school one day with bruises on her back, all five children are taken away from Mihai and Lisbet, who are charged with child abuse. The rest of the film is a complex, meaty narrative, combining elements of legal thriller, family drama, and political satire into an exploration of neighborly conflict. 

This may sound like a film with a political agenda. Certainly, it would be easy to mistake it as one, especially when the protagonists, staunchly conservative Christians, are presented as sympathetically as the Gheorghius are, and their opponents, bureaucratic progressives, are positioned as their antagonists. However, beneath the icy, politicking surface of FJORD lies a wry political neutrality. It’s not deciding whose politics are right or wrong, but poking fun at the idea of adjudication based on political and religious beliefs. It does its utmost to present the pros and cons of both sides, exploring the hypocrisies and contradictions of all of its characters, and in doing so, arrives at an even more poignant conclusion than a partisan or sanctimonious screed. The movie is not a campaign speech or a sermon. It is, however, a secular demonstration of how to love thy neighbor. FJORD advocates for making judgment calls based on personal relationships, not political agendas.

[L-R]: Renate Reinsve as LISBET, Øyvind Venstad Kjeksrud as AKE in FJORD.

The inciting action of the film is a brief moment between Lisbet, Emmanuel, and Elia. The two kids are engaged in a bout of raucous roughhousing. The argument spills over into the kitchen, where Lisbet is holding her baby as she cooks dinner for their family of seven. The physical nature of the kids’ squabble results in a pot of boiling water getting knocked over, and Lisbet, frightened for the baby, angrily pushes Elia away, sending the siblings to their room as punishment.

Crucially, the audience does not see the push itself – the camera is positioned so that the action is obscured just-so – but at the time it occurs, we do not yet know the weight of the moment. On its surface, the scene is pretty mundane. Kids' stuff. Household chores. A petty argument. I thought little of it myself, whatever that says about me. However, later in the film, that moment becomes the defining example of parental violence cited by the court, recapitulated and deconstructed to its cruelest extremes.

That sort of thing happens over and over again across Mungiu’s tremendous screenplay. Small actions have massive impacts. Seemingly innocuous moments early on become defining offenses issues later in the film, like handclaps that trigger landslides. Or, perhaps, an avalanche. There is recurring imagery in FJORD of an avalanche tumbling down the mountainside above Elia and Emmanuel’s new school. The walls of the school, the principal tells their father, are built to withstand them, which makes for excellent contrasting symbolism. The infrastructure of this society may be built to protect kids from natural crises, but for this family, societal bureaucracy has created one.

Director Cristian Mungiu on the set of FJORD.

Mungiu’s direction is naturalistic, but subtly carefully orchestrated. FJORD is made up almost entirely of long single-takes, many filmed with a handheld camera. Often, the camera is positioned as though in a vacant spot in the room, the intimacy of handheld shooting creating the sensation that we, the audience, are sitting with the other actors. Mungiu chooses his shots carefully, and Tudor Vladimir Panduru’s cinematography and the actors do the rest of the work, making static sequences look beautiful and feel riveting.

Reinsve, in particular, delivers the standout performance of FJORD. She plays Lisbet with a kind of doe-eyed innocence, except for when her family is first separated. In those moments, her eyes brimming with angry tears, she exhibits an impressive display of maternal ferocity. Stan, meanwhile, wears a shaved head and a strong accent in a fairly convincing work of transformation. He is best playing beside Reinsve. The two have worked together previously (I strongly recommend A DIFFERENT MAN), and their history and chemistry as Lisbet and Mihai reflect this familiarity. 

Sebastian Stan, left, and Renate Reinsve, right, in FJORD.

FJORD reminds me most of ANATOMY OF A FALL, the excellent French legal drama from a couple of years ago. Its court scenes are just as riveting as classics like A FEW GOOD MEN, 12 ANGRY MEN, or LEGALLY BLONDE. If you enjoyed those movies, you’ll find something to love in this. What sets it apart from its peers, however, is something I have never seen before in the legal drama genre. By the time the trial rolls around, the film has shown us, the audience, almost every action that the prosecuting lawyers levy against the Gheorghius. We have the same evidence that both sides do, defense and prosecution. There is no dramatic reveal or wrongfooting here, and what I love about that approach is that it does not tell us what to think. Apolitical. You can agree with the lawyers or sympathize with the family, or neither. There’s no leading the witness. We are simply members of the jury, and we decide what to make of the case for ourselves.

Is this an excellent film? GUILTY on all charges.

Release info: Now playing in theaters.

Final score: 4.5/5 

Pruett Norris is a journalist and film critic based in Asheville, NC. He is a member of the North Carolina Film Critics Association and has written for 1 of My Stories, 828newsNOW, Cultural Voice of North Carolina, Pictures and Projections, and Pontificator. He enjoys the films of Richard Linklater, vampire movies, and Oscars trivia.