Alina is determined to rescue her childhood friend Voichita from the monastery she was sent to after both girls were ejected from an orphanage at the age of eighteen. Alina's single-minded resolve excludes any consideration that the docile Voichita might have actually found fulfillment in this austere retreat - and a means of forgetting the forbidden love she and Alina once shared.
Cristian Mungiu’s insightful study of women on the verge of a nervous breakdown, with its formal control and somber realism, won the Best Screenplay and Best Actress Awards at the 2012 Cannes Festival.