Alina and Voichita are two young women in their mid-twenties.  Old friends who grew up together in an orphanage, they reunite over a weekend.  Alina has come back to Romania from Germany and wants Voichita to return with her; but Voichita is reluctant to leave the monastery where she lives with a dozen other women and a lone priest, believing she’s found a cure for crippling loneliness ... God.  Mungiu embeds us in the world of her frugal, barren monastery over a few days, with Alina's presence forcing her to confront her beliefs.  Meanwhile, her colleagues react with increasing hostility to the threat Alina poses to their way of life.

"Spare, unadorned and strikingly shot, Cristian Mungiu's film is an unusual rendering of a Romanian exorcism case and is bound to split both audience and critical opinions, some considering it a major achievement and others blaming it for overlong pretentious sensationalism. But it will certainly not pass unnoticed ..."  (Dan Fainaru - Screen Daily)