The communist past has been a popular theme in recent Romanian cinema and even with the risk of becoming repetitive, stories on these times are necessary in a country still fumbling through the relationship with its own past.

At best, they dare to address the unspeakable and thus trigger not only a public discussion on the horrors of aftermath of the regime but also a massive wave of testimonies.

Cristian Mungiu's excellent 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days did more for the public knowledge of the collective drama of illegal abortions than any history book and caused an impressive number of people to talk about their personal experience with this traumatic issue.

Roxanne doesn't come close to a film like Mungiu's (not by miles) but it does tackle a highly debated topic: the files kept by the Securitate (the communist secret police) on Romanian citizens and the question of who were the informers.

The hero in this case, a hapless guy named Tavi, was snitched to the Securitate when he called Radio Free Europe in 1989 to dedicate the Police hit “Roxanne” to his then girlfriend, Roxana (a strange choice given that the song is about a prostitute but then again, a young man's enamoured mind works in mysterious ways...).

Twenty years later he is just as hapless and frustrated with his average life. That is until he demands to see his Securitate files, which triggers not only the reunion with Roxana but also the growing feeling he could be the father of her son.

Add Roxana's suspicious husband, Tavi's suffering girlfriend and his mother who struggles with the onset of Alzheimer's and the collective tension is bound to blow.

This is a good theme and kudos to Hotea for going for it. Unfortunately he doesn't really have the skill to pull if off.

For such an incendiary political and personal story, this film left me completely unmoved.

For staters, it is difficult to have such a dull figure carrying the story and by the end of it, the big solving of the mystery will not surprise many.

Hotea has worked in television so far and you can tell just by looking at his film. The characters are dangerously close to stereotypes, you have heard the dialogue before, the camera is often static and there are lots of interiors, all features you've seen a million times on your average TV show.

Which is a shame because this could have been a great drama. But as this is Hotea's first feature, let's hope he chooses a similarly solid idea next time and matches it with the execution.

Roxanne is currently running in cinemas across the country and if you are intrigued by the trailer below, check out its shows at cinemagia.ro.

(photo source: cinemagia.ro)