The Whistlers (film)


The Whistlers is a 2019 Romanian comedy crime thriller film directed by Corneliu Porumboiu and starring Vlad Ivanov. It premiered in competition at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. It was selected as the Romanian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.

Plot

A police officer comes to the Spanish island of La Gomera to learn the language of El Silbo in order to free Zsolt, a controversial businessman arrested in Bucharest.

Cast

The film was produced through the director's company 42 km Film in collaboration with France's Les Films du Worso and Germany's Komplizen Film, with mk2 handling the distribution sales. Shooting took place in Romania and the Canary Islands.

Release

The film competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. In May 2019, the film's UK distribution rights were sold to Curzon Artificial Eye, and the US rights sold to Magnolia Pictures.

Reception

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 81% based on 86 reviews, with an average rating of 7.15/10. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 77 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Reporting from the Cannes Film Festival, Jessica Kiang of Variety wrote that the film "is an enjoyable affair with just enough of a slant to feel a little offbeat", but it might leave fans of Porumboiu's previous films disappointed. New York Times's A.O. Scott wrote that while the film is "an ingeniously structured, engaging and witty display of filmmaking skill," it "is Porumboiu’s most elaborate feature and in some ways his least ambitious".