“Faithful” is a strong movie where the short running time works against it and almost ruins it all together. The fact that Marzena Grzegorczyk was able to pull it off says much about her ability to write and direct. Now someone needs to give her a large budget and let her rework this into a feature-length film.
The movie’s story is a standard one, but with a twist. There is a woman named Marta (Aleksandra Konieczna) who receives a letter from Dagmar (Danuta Stenka) that claims the letter writer is having an affair with Marta’s politician husband. Marta has her doubts, but sends her sister, Elisa (Magdalena Cielecka), to meet with Dagmar and find out the truth. Elisa has her own opinion about the whole matter and decides to set things right in her own way, which leaves the climax of the film ripe with possibilities. Without giving anything away, this an intriguing premise, and it’s one that needs to be investigated more fully.
This is one of the those films where every character is likable despite the fact that they are all liars in one form or another. They lie to others, and they lie to themselves. It’s human to do that, though some lies can destroy lives, as they do here. All of this is enough to leave viewers wanting more, and I was upset when the credits rolled. I felt like I had been effectively teased, and I never appreciate that. But at least I was teased by an expert, and that’s always kind of fun.
