The Happiest Girl in the World

Delia, a schoolgirl from the provinces, wins a car in a prize draw, but to collect it she has to appear in a commercial in Bucharest: drink the juice on camera and say she is happy. As the shoot drags on the real conflict surfaces, because her parents want to sell the car and open a guesthouse and she does not. Radu Jude stages nearly all of it on one street through repeated takes, and the more the take repeats the more the comedy curdles. The advertising crew and the family agree on one thing, that what the girl wants comes last. It is Jude's first feature and the cold humour of his later work is already here. It screened at the Berlin Film Festival. Who it is for: viewers who follow the Romanian new wave and like real-time long-take storytelling. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a fast-moving story, since the film deliberately stays in one scene.