Cornelia Keneres is a mother who will do anything for her son. It’s a loyalty that extends far beyond the normal behaviors of a mother and child.

Luminita Gheorghiu stars as Cornelia

A bourgeois woman in Bucharest, Romania, Cornelia (played by Luminita Gheorghiu) is a recognized architect and set designer. But her greatest skill is in the art of meddling. This trait seems to be a social hobby for her, until the day her thirty-something Barbu gets in a car accident, striking and killing a 13-year-old boy.

"Child's Pose" boasts a strong script and even stronger performances by its central cast. It's for these reasons the film won the Berlin Film Festival's prestigious 2014 Golden Bear Award.

Collected from an Opera performance by her equally posh sister, Cornelia learns that her only child Barbu (played by Bogdan Dumitrache), has committed a crime that may send him to jail for years. Thus begins the full-time job of protecting her son. 

Showing no signs of horror or sadness about his crime, Cornelia storms into the local police bureau in her fur stole, with coifed hair and heavy gold rings blazing. She and her sister have a warmth with one another. They’re like two mafia members getting things done.

Though there is a discernible lack of closeness and intimacy between mother and son (they barely even greet one another), Cornelia chastises local police investigators accusing them of “coming here like hyenas, ganging up on my baby!” Meanwhile, her “baby” looks about 33 years old.

Barbu is hardly a golden child. He’s disheveled, unaccomplished and a sourpuss. He’s married to Carmen, a woman Cornelia finds abysmal, hasn’t produced grandchildren, rarely gives his mother the time of day. Hell, he even skipped her birthday party. And yet she’s obsessed. 

It seems Cornelia’s character is the Mrs. Robinson of Romanian cinema in "Child's Pose", but her weapon isn’t sex, it’s motherly love.

In one scene, Cornelia uses her key to sneak into Barbu and Carmen’s house. She thoughtfully packs a suitcase for him, and then begins unabashedly snooping. She feeds the fish, rinses out the tub, pees with the door open. She even snoops through his bedside table- examining a bottle of sexual lubricant and condoms warily.

Back at the site of the hit-and-run, the lead police detective Googles Cornelia, and learning that she’s an accomplished architect, decides there’s a favor she can do for him in exchange for his help protecting Barbu. She’s more than happy to negotiate, bribe and lie on his behalf.

She later meets with the one eye witness to the crash- the driver whose car Barbu was passing when a group of kids ran across the street and the fateful accident occurred. Named Mr. Laurentiu, the other driver is a well-dressed thug. He admits to engaging Barbu in a game of chicken that night and tries to blackmail Cornelia for more than 80,000 Euros. She regrettably finds herself at odds with a man she cannot outsmart. 

As with everything in his life, Cornelia has a master plan for Barbu, but he declares he’s fed up and had enough. He refuses to visit the family of the little boy he killed, balking at the notion that he should attend the boy’s funeral or make amends with the family. 

More devastatingly, Barbu wants his mother out of his life. He tells her to stop calling him, which wounds her greatly.  But Barbu is a man-child. Despite his callousness and cruel outbursts toward his mother, he still expects her to do everything for him. In one particular scene, he explodes at her for buying the wrong colored box of expensive nasal drops he’d requested.

The women in his life do everything for him, though considering his putrid attitude it’s unclear why. 

It’s a hard road when you’ve got money, means and a mutually dysfunctional mother son relationship.

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