6.9 ON THE RICHTER SCALE

Romania, 2016, 117 minutes, Colour.
Laurentiu Banescu, Maria Obretin, Teodor Corban, Maria Simona Aarsu.
Directed by Nae Caranfil.

This is a comedy/drama/musical which will have main appeal to the Romanian audience who appreciate the situations, the characters and their styles, the songs for the musical and their delivery.

The focus is on an actor, not confident in himself, performing in Bucharest, rehearsing for a musical based on the story of Orpheus, a modern singer and the contemporary Eurydice also a singer. There are quite a number of scenes of rehearsal. A number of the songs are included, some cool choreography (with some nods to Bob Fosse), however, it would seem that the routines would appeal locally rather than internationally.

The actor has been married for five years but is questioning his relationship with his wife, an interior decorator, then moving into a new apartment and her rearranging it.

The difficulty of the actor is that he has a fear of earthquakes. There is an initial tremor. He is terrified. However, his wife has not noticed the quake. He raises the issue as often as possible but most people have not noticed it. Where becomes more significant for him is the range of nightmares he has about earthquake situations and his fears. And his friends mock him and setting him up to be mocked about the quakes and his fears.

He has an associate who continually gives him advice, test his theories about the ways in which he should organise the separation from his wife.

However, there is a complication with the arrival of an agent from England at the rehearsals – and it emerges that he is the long absent father of the actor, a pilot, distinguished, disappeared long since, married again with family, alleging that he has terminal cancer, but a roue of the most self-satisfied kind. While he bonds with his son, he also has a scheme whereby he would like to use his son’s house is a base. Then he wants to use the apartment for three nights to spend with a girlfriend, glamorous but also a psychology student who later has some wise advice for the actor.

The musical goes on, the actor looking intently at his wife, her misinterpreting it as looking at the actress, her leaving, taunted by her father-in-law, attempting suicide, rescued by the man upstairs who is an estate agent and she moves into his apartment for redecorating.

The film moves somewhat into fantasy at the end with the song and dance routines from the musical.