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The Unsaved Movie Review

The Unsaved (La limita de jos a cerului) is a 2013 Moldovan drama film directed by Igor Cobileanski and starring Igor Babiac. It’s a slight, standard drama.

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“I was told to be alone“

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It is about Viorel, a 25-year-old fledgling drug dealer, from a backwater little town in the contemporary Republic of Moldova. He lives at home with his mother and he lets his days pass in the usual “laissez-faire” Moldavian style. He gets involved through his best friend, Goose, in small-time drug dealing, while helping him to fly a hang glider that never seems to work properly. He also falls in love with Maria, the girl who happens to cut his hair.

This is your familiar tale of a main who still struggles to get it together in life while focusing particularly on the drugs subplot. That type of storyline almost always bores me, and here it’s the same old, same old. The entire film operates as such – it is all very well done and well executed, but overly familiar in story and characters.

Viorel is very well developed, but others are much inferior, though his friendship with Goose is well realized and one of the movie’s highlights for sure. I also really liked the scenes with his mother, which rank among the best of the bunch, but I personally could have gone without the romantic subplot as that to me felt like the weakest, most unnecessary part of this already overly short movie that could have used that extra runtime on something more substantial.

The Unsaved is particularly well acted with all performances being strong. The highlight is the main performance from Igor Babiac, but others are also very good themselves. The direction from Igor Cobileanski is also quite strong, but the pacing should have been better. The flick should have been more involving for such a short runtime.

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Also, I liked that hang glider subplot so much that I wanted much more of it as it was the only truly cinematic, somewhat romantic part of a very grounded in reality Moldovan flick. This picture overall presented a solid, albeit limited look into this particular country.

The Unsaved is well directed, very well acted and it benefits from a couple of very cinematic, moving moments, but most of its storyline is overly familiar in most of the plot beats with not enough original additions to it. It’s overall very well made, but too short and insubstantial.

My Rating – 3