Coronation Street: Romanian Holiday
Synopsis: “Coronation Street: Romanian Holiday” is a 2009 film as part of the popular British soap opera “Coronation Street”.
The main protagonists are Roy and Hayley Anne Cropper, a more or less typical British couple. Hayley is a male-to-female transsexual. The two own a café in the fictional city of Weatherfield.
Roy and Hayley are invited in Romania, Transylvania, to the wedding of their friend – Frankie Baldwin – to a football player. Due to unforeseen events, they arrive one week later, missing the wedding. But they are invited to remain at the big villa of the newlyweds, as they are on their honeymoon. Due to more mishap, they decide to go back home, but meet their friend, Rebecca "Becky" McDonald, in the airport, and from that point on, adventures keep pouring in.
My opinion: From the very beginning, when they get the invitation to the wedding in Transylvania, with Roy stressing the name “Romania”, one can understand the bias – this is a distant land, exotic, maybe even strange, a land that one might eventually wish to visit, but never consider to get married in and remain in.
The house where the newlyweds will live in, the football player’s abode, is a huge, modern villa – having a slight touch of kitsch in it, but nevertheless impressing the foreign visitor. It comes into stark contradiction with the surroundings – the pristine environment of the Transylvanian countryside.
Romania is presented as a predominantly rural and extremely sunny land, that got stuck somewhere in the Middle Ages, where roads of asphalt are quite rare, and people still use as means of transportation the horse-pulled cart. People are very warm, but have strong personalities – which can be tricky sometimes.
Bran castle – Dracula’s notorious residence – is visited, Orthodox priests and archaic-looking peasants are acquainted quite well with young, sexy British girls, and strong alcohol flows abundantly – seems like a vacation not to be missed.
