Andrea Polik

Intense, very entertaining, classic dark comedy. Oscar-winning director (Sing! in 2017) makes a communist-era satirical drama based on real events in 1951. State police, looking for an escaped convict, enter an average-looking family's Budapest apartment. And they stay. And so stays every single person afterwards who turns up at the apartment, be it a distant relative, a neighbour, or a concerned colleague who decides to check on his friend who did not show up at work two days in a row. Two state police fellows open the door, invite (or order) the visitor in, the door closes, the key turns, and inside, an increasingly diverse and frustrated group of people tries to make sense of the events, figure out what's going on, find out if there is a way to leave, or, rather, a place to lay down to sleep, as the days go on and even more persons join them. The film is full of one-liners, absurd situations, personal little secrets and the general suffocating tension that led to the revolution in 1956. One of the bests to showcase the sort of cynical, bittersweet, dry and witty Hungarian humour that helps to survive practically anything.