While the title suggests a TV movie rom-com, Love Gets a Room is a moving, inventive, and suspenseful achievement about young love amidst the terrors of the war. It’s about the horrors of living in a ghettoized community lorded over by the enemy while trying to justify any attempts to bring a small amount of joy to those living there. It’s about life imitating art and art illustrating life. And it’s about sacrifice in a world that isn’t fair and the struggle to accept that.
“Love Gets a Room” is actually the title of a real play that was performed in a Warsaw ghetto in 1942. Here it is acted out in real-time by a group of actors who perform the comedy while two of them secretly plan an escape from the ghetto once the curtain falls.
From the stunning opening tracking shot, we find Stefcia (Clara Rugaard) running through the wintry streets to get to the theater where she is one of the leads in a play called “Love Looks for an Apartment” – a musical comedy about two couples who all end up renting the same apartment while falling in love with each other’s spouses.
Director Rodrigo Cortés (“Buried”) masterfully navigates the heavier story aspects of his film while leaning into the musical-theater production we see a good portion of. The real story that plays out mirrors the story on stage, allowing the lives of the actors and the characters they play to intermingle in brilliant and telling ways. This includes Stefcia’s boyfriend Edmund (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo), his little sister Sarah (Dalit Streett Tejada), and Stefcia’s ex-boyfriend Patrik (Mark Ryder), who wants her to escape with him after bribing a Nazi officer. But is that plan actually going to work? Or are they setting themselves up for certain death? And what about her real boyfriend? Will she leave him behind? And what about his young sister?
These problems only intensify when the volatile Sergeant Szkopp (Magnus Kreppeer) shows up in the middle of the play, creating fear in the audience and those performing on stage.
Cortés has crafted a stunningly beautiful and powerful film that narrows its focus on the power of theater – in both bringing momentary joy to a joyless situation – and the power of love in a potentially hopeless situation. The actual Jerzy Jurandot play is surprisingly timely and well-written, and the film’s composer Victor Reyes creates winning songs from his words. It’s a testament to Cortés that when the film moves to the stage, we are as entranced by the play and the actors playing the characters as we are by the drama playing behind the scenes. The choreography in and out of the theater is breathless, and as intense as the 103 minutes might get, there are moments of quiet beauty that stun just as equally.
Every actor here is superb, with Rugaard as Stefcia being the true focus and a tour de force. While the film could get overlooked come award season, her performance and the film itself deserve accolades. From the directing to the superb cinematography to the jaw-dropping set design, this is by far one of the year’s best films.
It is an emotional and technical tour de force that won’t easily be forgotten by those who buy a ticket.
Love Gets A Room opens in select theaters on June 23, 2023, and will be available to stream on June 30.
