Agnes Kocsis’s Adrienn Pál tells the story of Piroska (played by Eva Gabor), an obese nurse working at Saint Andrew’s terminal ward. She has a dull existence and approaches her job with no sensitivity, she almost faces her work in a robotic fashion, staring blankly at a wall of cardiac monitors, wheeling the corpses to the morgue and so on. She lives with her critical husband and wonders into her past when she comes across a patient named, Adrienn Pál, the same name of her child hood friend.
The search for her long lost best friend begins – This isn’t suggesting the film picks up speed, it doesn’t. It is clear that Kocsis was primarily concerned with representing the film in a slow and mundane fashion. She succeeds in doing so and along the way manages to bore the audience to death with her pretentious camera work, obvious visual connections, namely the cardiac monitors mirroring the composition of the grave stones in the cemetery.
As well as this the constant reminder that Piroska has an addiction to food is overwhelmingly dull. The film has moments of awkward humour amongst the dreary subject matter; an example of this is the sequences where Piroska wheels a corpse in the elevator and stares blankly whilst whipping out yet another pastry.
Laughter was definitely present in the screening room but for me it was due to the fact at no point did I engage in the film. There is not one character the audience warms to – Being an dedicated fan of slow paced, person centered films such as About Schmidt and The Good Girl, I was excited to endure Adrienn Pál but I was ridiculously disappointed.
The film surpasses the two-hour mark and it will anger you in ways you didn’t think possible – Nothing is original here and at the end of the film, one is left without the slightest crumb of satisfaction.
A mundane and amateur effort and the Q & A after the screening didn’t help elevate my negative response to the film. Kocsis stated she wanted to bring to light the fact that overweight people are seen by society as cheerful, she went on to say that they are actually depressed. A slight over generalised statement, which just reflected the lack of depth and originality in Adrienn Pál.
Director: Agnes Kocsis
Writers: Ágnes Kocsis, Andrea Roberti
Cast: Éva Gábor, István Znamenák, Ákos Horváth, Lia Pokorny, Izabella Hegyi
Runtime: 136 min
Country: Hungary-Netherlands-Austria-France
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