Lemonade, written by Tatiana Ionascu and Ioana Uricaru, directed by the latter - Eight out of 10

Lemonade, written by Tatiana Ionascu and Ioana Uricaru, directed by the latter

Eight out of 10

The reason why this film is named Lemonade might intrigue the viewers and some might conclude that it could have an optimistic message, summarized in the suggestion:

If an optimistic, resilient individual receives lemons, he or she will make Lemonade with them.

Which might be what the heroine of this feature, Mara aka the rather hesitant and alas unconvincing Malina Manovici, does when faced with what fate has given her, a series of lemons, which in slang would be described as “useless, defective” cards, people and results.

The protagonist has arrived in the Land of the Free – up to the moment when Trump was elected, a desirable place – as a nurse, enrolled in a program that gave her the right to work for a limited period, of six months, after which she is supposed to return to her country – which happens to be my own.

Indeed, this film has personal echoes for this reader, who has worked for AT&T in Europe and then for a short time in the US and whose sister has been part of the American medical system, as a doctor in Chicago, for the last twenty years, experiencing problems, albeit different from the ones Mara has to face.

The heroine has to go through the sometimes-harrowing process of interviews with an immigration official, following her marriage to an American citizen that would normally give her the right for a green card and then documents, if the officials approve her request.

While working as a nurse, she has met Daniel, who is brought to the hospital after falling from a tree, in what the insurance company would dispute and eventually refuse to classify as a working accident, and the two get to know each other while the nurse helped him find recuperate.

He asks her to marry him, she then makes the arrangements for her nine year old son to fly to the US, sell the apartment she has back in Romania and in the future find a place in a good school and settle with her boy and husband for a better life in the best democracy in the world – if we follow what happens in the film and watch Trump and his supporters in action, we would seriously doubt that.

The life of the tragic figure starts falling apart when the immigration official calls her and states that there are problems with her application, invites her into his car, takes her to an isolated place – where he claims he used to swim as a boy – starts asking personal questions, with the pretext that it is for the official investigation, states that he knows her husband has a criminal record, is impotent, at least temporarily after the fall from the tree which he “made square”, and pushes the defenseless woman into a corner, with the intent to abuse her.

This villain, officer Moji, asks Mara if she has had intercourse with her disabled spouse, and when she responds that they made love, he claims this is lying under oath, enough for her to be placed on the next plane back to her country, for he knows that the treatment mentioned in the medical record – doubtful as it was that he would be granted access to private documents of this kind – renders the man unable to have an erection.

Moji moves to what brought him here, to this remote location, where he just wants to use his absolute power in the case to force the applicant for the green card to have sex with him – which would mean rape – knowing that she would be in a very difficult position if she tried to report this to the police, with her word against his – he then takes her hand and masturbates and then tries to make her come the next day to give in to his requests.

While the heroine was held and blackmailed by the loathsome official, other representatives of the law where at the door of her room in a motel, where her son was left with a friend – who has had to go when Moji kept Mara for too long – and then started questioning her, for the police is called when a minor is left without supervision and they tried to establish if she is the mother, make the boy take his shirt off to see if there are signs of violence on the body

When Mara tells Daniel about what happened with the villainous immigration official, his reaction alas is not one of understanding, compassion and support for the victim, but on the contrary, he also becomes abusive, insisting she should have called him and when she tries to expose the blackmail, pressure, this other malevolent man shouts at her, insults the one he calls a whore, while the boy comes out from the next room with a pistol.

This is because he heard the fight, which degenerated after Daniel repeatedly used the word whore and others, Mara retorting that he is a vicious impotent – or words to that effect – and the brute hits her, following mother and son in the street with the gun he took from the boy, witnessed by at least one person, who might have been the neighbor, who could be crucial at later stages.

The desperate woman spends the night with her son at a friend, meets the monster who could send her back to Romania, in the hotel room which he had indicated, but only after seeing a Bosnian Serb lawyer, who gave her a recording device, and telling Moji that she wants to pay him, instead of having sex with him, so that he does not reject her application, but this only makes him furious, for he suspects she may try to record him, hence she makes her undress and then assaults her again.

It seems an impossible situation, for there are no solutions in this allegedly well-functioning system and the heroine becomes a target, abused by two men, now that she has sold her flat in her home country, where her case is not isolated – for huge numbers of Americans have voted for a man that uses hate, fear of immigrants as the main slogans for his repulsive politics…