Meet Robert. He's miserable, middle-aged, out of work, and evicted. When he meets young immigrant Branko, Robert gets an opportunity to score some quick cash: journey to Serbia, marry Branko's girlfriend so she can get a visa, and collect five grand. With a few hundred dollars as down payment, Robert hops a plane to Belgrade and is deposited at the apartment of Olga, Branko's gracious and comely mother. While Branko tries desperately to scrape together the rest of the money in New York, Robert finds Olga's company revitalizing.

Writer/director Darko Lungulov examines the feeling of being a fish out of water in both his home country of Serbia and his adopted New York, where he lived for more than a decade. Lungulov balances two tones in his two storylines—the breath-of-fresh-air sensation in Serbia plays even stronger against the endless frustrating setbacks in New York. Being in chaotic Belgrade is a shot in the arm for a cynical, seen-it-all New Yorker, and actor David Thornton has Robert evolve physically from scruffy and sunken to more clean-cut and pert during the course of his stay. As Branko, meanwhile, Branislav Trifunovic embodies the mix of hope and fear that fills an immigrant trying to carve out his place in a new land.

Darko Lungulov