Nina

Filmmaker Olga Chadjas’s Polish drama tells the story of a married couple facing fertility problems who decide to find a woman to act as a handsomely-paid surrogate mother. Nina (Julia Kijowska), a sophisticated teacher, and her husband Wojtek (Andrzej Konopka), a thick-headed mechanic, identify a young barista, Magda (Eliza Rycembel), as a potential carrier of their theoretical baby. Startled by the proposal, Magda runs off from a dinner meeting with the pair. But the awkward encounter proves to be only the beginning of an unexpected affair between Nina and Magda, the former realizing that perhaps she has never understood the truth about her sexuality. A resentful Wojtek makes his feelings known to both women, but beneath the melodramatic surface of this story are complex lines of primal desire, sexual politics, power, and class that make Nina far richer and mysterious, turning what might have been a superficial dramedy into a much darker tale. Recommended. (T. Keogh)