'Beyond the Hills' -- 3 1/2 stars

No Rating; 2:32 running time

Of all the movies culminating in a rite of exorcism, Romanian writer-director Cristian Mungiu's remarkable "Beyond the Hills" stands alone. It is a different sort of horror movie, focused on character and on the precarious emotional state of lovers whose affair has come to an abrupt close. The film's formal rigor is marked by long, meticulously composed shots often with six or eight or more characters jostling for attention within the frame, around a dinner table or a hospital bed. Mungiu, whose works include "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" (once seen, never forgotten), allows his story to breathe and to evoke a community and a country where, as they say, everyone has their reasons. And nothing quite works as it should. -- Michael Phillips

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March 14, 2013