Closer to the Moon

In Bucharest, circa 1959, a disillusioned group of old friends from the WWII Jewish Resistance hijack a van delivering cash to the Romanian National Bank, staging the robbery so that it looks like a movie shoot—a heist that fascinates a café waiter named Virgil (Henry Lloyd). Eventually, the four men and a woman are arrested, tried in a kangaroo court, and convicted. While awaiting execution, they are forced by the Securitate—aka Romanian secret police—to re-enact the robbery in a slyly anti-Semitic propaganda film. Being in the right place at the right time enables Virgil to serve as assistant to an alcoholic Romanian film director (Allan Corduner), and later be assigned as a cameraman to film the re-enactment. The intrepid gang of robbers are: a chief police inspector (Mark Strong), a political scientist (Vera Farmiga), a history professor (Christian McKay), a rocket scientist (Tim Plester), and a respected journalist (Joe Armstrong). What prompted them to steal bags of banknotes that were worthless outside of Romania? Was it a Zionist plot that failed? Why did they commit a crime they knew would inevitably lead to the death penalty? Eventually, it will only be Virgil who knows the real answer to these questions, as flashbacks reveal a secret that the Communist authorities never discovered. Based on a true story, this darkly comedic, absurdist drama from writer-director Nae Caranfil suffers somewhat from tone problems, but is recommended, overall. (S. Granger)