"Realism is not real life, but a stylistic decision—a deceptively liberal one, at that—frequently used and abused to insist that a fictional world is actual rather than manufactured. The circumstances that lead to the Gheorghiu family being investigated and prosecuted in Fjord are so psychologically fraudulent, so clearly avoidable—if only a single one of these characters could act outside of the fate that [Cristian] Mungiu has prescribed for them, the entire conflict would collapse—that the film only functions as a sadistic exercise in engineering doublethink in an audience that it knows has already made up its mind..."
Blake Williams (
@Astrostic) on FJORD: