Push and pull in short form. Roxana Stroe’s Poisonous is a seductive yet frustrating movie. Drawing the viewer in at the same time as pushing them away. It’s an apt effect for a movie that depicts the pain of heartbreak, the passionate joy of love in conflict with the hollow ache of an absence for that love. But it’s ultimately a distancing effect, less so in that it might distance one from appreciating the movie’s many fine qualities (that’s still entirely possible here), more so in that it distances Stroe from her objectives.
For all its attempts at abstraction, this is a very straightforward movie. That it’s easy to follow isn’t a criticism. Stroe’s imagery is expressive, and accomplished with a fine physical performance from Cilla Silvia as a woman bereft and alone, following the departure of her lover. It’s a most visually poetic movie, beautifully photographed and designed, but its verbal poetry is substantially less rewarding.
Stroe’s narration relates nothing that her images already don’t, and indeed detracts from their impact. It’s overbearing, overly heartfelt, and overdone. She pulls you in with her striking visual artistry, then pushes you away with her scriptwriting. In several regards, this is a lovely little movie, but maybe best watched on mute.