Love Sick is a tale of pure unfettered romance that skates over dangerous waters. The lightness and rapidity of its dialogue hides a literary depth that is easy to miss. The two lead characters give significantly assured and fine performances as the carefree youngsters in a heady romance within a world of teenage absolutes.Alex and Kiki meet at university in Bucharest. What first begins as a natural friendship, soon becomes an intense love affair. "I wonder if this building is earthquake proof," says one early in the script, clearly joking, and with the same childish belief in invulnerability that soon characterises their relationship.One of the opening images is of the two of them running through the rain - a scene Kiki later dreams of the first night she stays over at Alex's place. The film quite deliberately runs in this ambiance of fairy-tale romance for a while - "I could smell the scent of sleep on her, and that's when I desired to see her always, every morning." It is an idealistic celebration of emotional warmth and closeness, of which sexuality (and the fact that they are both girls) plays only a small part. The dialogue rushes forth like a spring or waterfall that cannot be stopped, characteristic of many people of their age group. Such alacrity of communication, fired by physical attraction and excitement, and with a trust that has not been scrutinized too closely, perhaps accurately conveys the way many teenagers 'fall in love'. Whatever our prejudices, it does have a poetic beauty and easily overcomes any objection to the unmistakable lesbianism (which, however, would be shocking to the community where the story is set).Having toyed with our emotional tolerance thus far, the film then presents a more dangerous challenge. Kiki and Alex discuss the purity of an important novella by François-René de Chateaubriand (which sadly many audiences will not be familiar with). The eponymous René of the novella in point is a romantic figure whose sister joins a convent to overcome her incestuous love for him. The story is discussed when Alex presses Kiki about the feelings of her brother Sandu, who has become increasingly disruptive to their relationship. It asks us how far we can use the purity of lyrical attachment to justify that which we feel is wrong. "I like their recklessness, the irresponsible way in which they justify their sexual impulses by finding a correspondent for them in the changes of nature," may sound like waffle, but accurately depicts the romantic self-deception in which the girls are perhaps engaging.Both girls have been hiding their more serious side, Alex subduing her desire to study and Kiki skilfully disguising her emotional instability. The imagery makes an almost imperceptible shift, showing the disparity that is appearing between their heady ideals and the intrusion of darker elements. "You have a sleepy smell, like when you wake up in the morning and you've been dreaming too long." Love Sick has much more depth than is immediately apparent. Its flaws are that it is too deceptively flippant, and the speed at which it progresses leaves little time to digest the ideas that are so cleverly balanced. The ending comes so swiftly that we may very easily feel cheated at first, as if some greater resolution was in order. " . . . we had no idea what had happened, but that it was something rather beautiful." This is a film that deserves greater examination than it seems to ask us for, but such examination may be well worth the effort.

i think it is a nice movie; i think it is a very romanian movie through scenery and atmoshpere; i think it was not intended to be sensual (sensuality is a result, not a purpose); i think it is very natural; i think it is humane; i think it was interesting; i think the actors never made me think... waw lame acting (they are not Sean Connory & co) neither is the film a block buster, they are like the movie... normal ppl that can act...; i think the movie reached its intention; i think it made me feel things (or feel them again :) ); i think i'm not objective;i really enjoyed it... that i know.

Love is overwhelming... In all it's manifestations... Gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous... Tudor Chirila, Maria Popistasu and Ioana Barbu, one truly dramatic story about love in all it's shapes, a story about the undecipherable ways of young hearts, about life and lost innocence all directed by the skillful eye of Tudor Giurgiu. With a magnificent soundtrack featuring Faultline & Chris Martin and Vama Veche it surprises in every way leaving behind the sour taste of misunderstanding love... Truly remarkable... Is it me or is Romanian cinematography slowly but surely advancing and gaining respect? This is a brilliant film... Two thumbs up to everybody involved.

***LIGHT SPOILER ALERT*** The story sounds good and if you've read the novel, then you're probably expecting a deep and intense movie that could offer some insight for some interesting and insufficiently explored human relationships.True enough, the script tries to do that, the director tries to do that, but the main cast fails miserably. Maria's acting is so dry that lacks any feeling whatsoever, her most intense moments seem almost comical. Sometimes she seems to be nervous due to the camera. Her only really feeling scene is near the end where she gets dumped by her girlfriend.Ioana seems even more tense than Maria and even worse, she doesn't seem natural at all. Maria had the attitude, even if it was artificially pushed towards being obvious, but she had it and her character received some credibility. And to make matters worse, we don't have an insight on her: where does she come from, how come she got involved in the lesbian relationship, how did the relationship evolve? We only get some bits from her parents and their relationship just seems to 'be' there: it has a content and and end, but no beginning. Just like her partner Maria, she has only once scene that is truly touching, the scene where she dumps Maria's character Kiki.Tudor is the only person in this movie (aside from the landlady, great acting there) who manages to prove some acting talent. He has his character's attitude and it fits him. Only once or twice he seems to falter (the scene at his parents' meal, he tries to be obvious when it wasn't necessary at all).I love the story, Tudor Chirila is OK there, the landlady actually acts and Puya delivers his couple of lines with style, but this doesn't save the movie. Too bad, the entire setting had huge potential and the Romanian cinematography could've used a movie on this theme.Oddly enough, the incestuous relationship between brother and sister seems to have more credibility than the no-background no-feeling (well, Maria's spoken interludes are a nice try in this direction) lesbian relationship of Maria and Ioana. I'm quite sorry for spending money on a ticket, I'd rather had watched it from the comfort of my room.