If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle

A juvenile prisoner learns his estranged mother is moving away.

Since 2005, the Romanian new wave has produced a half-dozen world cinema classics including “The Death of Mr. Lazarescu” and “Police, Adjective.” This prison drama by Florin Serban doesn’t reach the same heights, but it’s austere and intense, following an 18-year-old juvenile detention inmate (George Pistereanu) whose psychological condition worsens when he learns that his cruelly neglectful mom (Clara Voda) plans to regain custody of his younger brother (Marian Bratu). Serban, a double prizewinner at the Berlin Film Festival, keeps the camera disconcertingly close to his volatile young anti-hero, a rebel whose buzz-cut head is a ticking time bomb. (94 min.) Rob Nelson. 3 out of 4 stars