The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman
Year: 2013
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance, Thriller
Country: Romania, USA
Director: Fredrik Bond
Degree of Relevance: High
The main character in the plot, Charlie Countryman, is an American who comes to Bucharest at his mother’s spirit recommendation. Still mourning his mother’s death, he comes to Romania in search of an adventure. Played by Shia LaBeouf, the character falls in love with a girl, Gabi, after her father dies next to him on the plane to Bucharest. Later, he finds out that she is married to a dangerous and evil man and all sorts of issues arise, putting his life in danger.
Shot in Bucharest, the movie depicts quite a modern city with an impressive nightlife. However, there is also a blooming cultural life, since Gabi works at the Opera, which shows that people are still interested in this aspect. At the same time, the amount of dangerous people Charlie finds in his journey is impressive. There are numerous violent scenes throughout the movie and in the end Charlie risks his life as he gets involved in various conflicts. The methods used by the dangerous people resemble those we see in mobsters’ movies: threats, physical torture and even murder when needed. Blackmail is also present and it is something Charlie itself attempts in order to win Gabi from her husband, but he fails to do so.
In the end though, it seems that Romanian girls are kind and generous, since Gabi fakes killing Charlie and lets him live. All in all, the impression Charlie gets (an implicitly American perspective) is the fact that Bucharest is a jungle, an extremely varied city that has a little bit of everything: criminals, beautiful girls, a blooming nightlife, culture and many more. The image presented has some kind of exoticism in it, underlined by the fact that Charlie does not fit into the picture at all.
