Written and directed by Pawel Pawlikowski
Starring Joanna Kulig and Tomasz Kot
Running time 1 hour 28 minutes
MPAA rating R because sexy times and sad times

by Jaime Davis, The Fixer

Ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn’t have? Maybe the timing was way off, or they treated you like utter shit, or there was something between the two of you that was equal parts really fucking amazing and really fucking bad? I’ve had the first for real, and the second mixed with the third at the same time. Bottom line: it’s excruciatingly blissful torture. There’s something about this kind of heartbreak that speaks my language - I love the cloying, benign, syrupy aftertaste of a happy ending just as much as the next person, but the bitter pain of a searing bad love is a pleasing elixr to me, like the sweet burning of straight whisky seeping down deep into my belly. Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War, a desolate tale of love lost and found, multiple times, across borders and time in Cold War era Europe, is such a tale. Fair warning: after watching at the Philadelphia Film Festival this year I sat in the theater shell-shocked, because right away I knew in my bones that it had become my favorite movie of all-time. If you’re looking for a “real” review, it’s in your best interest to move along quite quickly to wherever it is you go for authentic film criticism, cause this sure as heck ain’t gonna be it.