The road to hell is paved with good intentions in Romanian director Cristian Mungiu’s (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Beyond the Hills) richly crafted family drama about a father’s temptation to involve his daughter in moral compromise.

Surgeon Romeo Aldea is hugely proud of his daughter Eliza, a grade-A pupil who has been offered a scholarship to a British university on graduation. Everything hangs on her final grades, however, but when she's subjected to a traumatic attack on the eve of her exams, he figures that she's handicapped by her injury and deserves whatever help he can provide - whatever the cost. Unbeknownst to the teenager, her seemingly respectable father begins to pursue increasingly desperate and illegal measures in a bid to save her...

A masterly, complex film of psychological subtlety and moral weight, Cristian Mungiu deservedly shared the Best Director prize at Cannes for this elegant, but gritty, slice of Romanian middle-class life.

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