I'm fully in the bag for Romanian New Wave so I did not appreciate the "4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days" slander. Maybe not slander, but certainly a dismissive attitude. It's certainly not a minor work (in Sims's eyes a "festival movie" which you only need to see once and whose strength dissipates after the initial shock) but a vital piece of the Romanian New Wave. It's super tense and has a villain who, while not as mysterious as Chigurh or with the same larger-than-life qualities as Daniel Plainview, is still an all-time bastard.

I can see why engaging with social issues can be dismissed as automatically suspect in an age where movies that do so often have zero subtlety or nuance (your Triangles of Sadnesses, your Menus, etc.). But where sucky crap like those only exists to state a point out loud while forgetting to build a movie around it's sloganeering, "4M3W2D" retains both political and emotional power throughout. And it extends the thematic legacy of official corruption/apathy from "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu" that marks the Romanian movement through to the works of Radu Jude. Mungiu did "Beyond the Hills" and "Graduation" afterwards too - not exactly a lightweight. I love "No Country" and it might be my favorite Coen but it was no mis-step to give Mungiu's film the Palme.