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Continuing the wave of stark and powerful films for Romania, director/writer Cristian Mungiu’s latest film doesn't quite have the lets-go-through-the-cinematic-ringer immediacy of his 2007 Palm d'Or winner, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days but it is an engrossing film based loosely on real events that lead up to a kind of exorcism at a monastery in Moldavia. Mungiu’s every-scene-is-a-single-shot style is impressive from a compositional standpoint and, only sometimes, keeps us at a distance. The two first time actresses who play the leads (and shared the Best Actress prize at Cannes) have dynamic faces and play the subtleties of their ambiguous relationship quite well – there is a shared history between them that we can guess at but never be sure what exactly they meant to each other. The film is an effective critique of the deeply religious life, presenting the good it strives for and the destructiveness it often produces.