Ìý Surely a contender for most ironic title of the year, Pleasant Days is anything but. Fresh out of the clink, young Peter (Tamás Polgár) finds his sister with a new-born surrogate child. The real mother, Maya (Orsi Tóth), is having an affair with Peter's boss and the web of tangled relationships grows tighter still when Peter starts to fall for Maya - much to his sister's dismay. From there, it's downhill as everyone becomes mired in each other's crushing misery.
Peter takes delight in being a voyeur (he watches Maya give birth and spies on her doing the dirty with the boss), and uses the information he gleans to manipulate those around him. That said, Maya and the rest also have a knack for getting their own way but the flip side is the destructive and often violent relationships to which they succumb. As a result, it's hard to raise a flicker of sympathy for any of these unfortunates.
"UTTERLY LACKING IN HEART AND HOPE"
The minimalist script doesn't give the cast much to work with although both Tóth and Polgár are very good at standing around pouting, which they do a lot. Mind you, it's beautifully shot in a Levi's commercial kind of way and director Kornél Mundruczó uses the bleak urban landscape to impressive effect. But for a film to be so utterly lacking in heart and hope makes it very hard going. No one said life was perfect but Mundruczó paints it like a spell on Death Row with no hope of reprieve.
