"The Most Persuasive Anti-Abortion Argument" Ever?(4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days)(Movie review)

Editor's note. When I ran a version of this column at Today's News & Viewswww.nrlc.orgit garnered the most response of any entry in the seven-year history of TN&V.

Even in the nation's capital, you wouldn't expect much of a crowd to be munching popcorn and draining Diet Cokes at a 1:05 in the afternoon matinee. So when my wife and I sat down at the E Street Cinema, located just around the corner from NRLC's office, it was no surprise that our presence doubled the attendance to watch 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days.

In limited release in the United States, 4 months is best known for two qualities. Although loaded down with many "best of" awards from critics, the Romanian film inexplicably was not among the five foreign language Oscar nominees.

The other is easier to understand. Since 4 months deals unflinchingly with an illegal abortion procured in the latter years of the reign of the madman Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, some want to label it the anti-Juno. As we examine whether and how this might be true, let me not overlook that writer-director Cristian Mungiu's film is brilliantly conceived and executed, more than deserving of the Palme d'Or at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and the European Film Award.

We've discussed the smash hit Juno three times: once here and twice in Today's News & Views. It deals with the pregnancy of a 16-year-old Minnesota girl. Despite critics (and the insistence of the leading lady, Ellen Page, who describes herself as "very much pro-choice"), the question for anyone who thought carefully about the film was never whether the Juno set out to be pro-life.

Rather, as the Marxists might say, was the film objectively pro-life? Whatever the intention, did Juno, for example, humanize not only the unborn baby but also all the parties involved? Did it make clear that Juno MacDuff would have had her abortion had it not been for the faithfulness of one lone sidewalk counselor? Did we come away appreciating how we are all frail human beings, looking for what we might see as the "easier" way out of a crisis situation?

Juno accomplished all this and much more. That it did so in spite of what the movers and shakers involved in the project may have wanted speaks volumes.