The Road of Not Getting Home – CineParadis Review

“The Road Home” (2025) is a short Romanian film about a man who tries to get a stranger home. It’s a very simple premise, but director Marian Farcut knows how to turn it into both a funny and heartwarming experience.

It’s Christmas season, and Petre wants to do something very normal: slaughter his pig. He is on his way to get a flamethrower because you can’t kill a pig without burning it, one of the most essential things you need to know as a respectable Romanian citizen. But on the way, he makes a short stop. He encounters a hitchhiker named Zoltan who, when asked where he is going, answers in Hungarian: home. Petre picks him up and tries to make small talk, but the language barrier turns what should be a simple interaction into a challenge for Petre.

The dynamic between the two characters is why this simple premise works. Petre tries his best to get Zoltan home, while Zoltan acts as if he doesn’t care what happens to him. At first, the situation is funny, but as the film progresses it becomes a little frustrating. Seeing a man who behaves like a child and cannot even be bothered to try to solve his own problem begins to feel like a lost cause.

The film creates this frustration through the acting. As the journey grows longer, Petre becomes increasingly frustrated. The tonal shift is also reflected in the first half of the film, which has relatively little dialogue and builds around a semi-absurd situation that is entertaining to follow. In the second half, there is more dialogue and the situation becomes more serious. It is not a complete tonal shift, as the comedy remains, but the viewer begins to empathise more with Petre and ask what they would do in the same situation. This is where much of the frustration comes from.

Even though everyone Petre encounters and asks for help, including his friend, the police and even his wife, seems less interested in getting Zoltan home, Petre still refuses to leave him alone. That is the heartwarming part. Even if he simply wanted to get away from his wife or postpone killing the pig, he did something that was not especially enjoyable for him. Maybe he understood how Zoltan felt. He knew what it was like to be alone, and perhaps he took the mission so seriously because it was helping him too. It’s the kind of film where it is up to the viewer to decide what motivates the main character, but the director makes sure to leave clues along the way.

“The Road Home” proves that gradually moving into the main character’s position can completely transform the tone of a situation, and director Marian Farcut uses dialogue as his strongest tool, both through what is said and through its absence.