TWO LOTTERY TICKETS: Romanian Comedy That Wins Big

When comedic cinema comes to mind, Romania is rarely the first place one might imagine as a go-to for laughs. The new film Two Lottery Tickets (Doua lozuri) from Romanian writer/producer/director Paul Negoescu aims to change that.

Based on the short story Douā loturi written by Ion Luca Caragiale, this low-key comedy tells the tale of three down on their luck men who go from one misadventure to the next in search of a stolen lottery ticket worth six million dollars. With only three days to claim the prize, the trio travel from their small provincial Romanian town to Bucharest to find the thieves and get back their ticket.

Meet The Guys

Two Lottery Tickets does well to create characters whose personality traits both conflict and play off of one another with sharp takes on established tropes. The main character of Dinel (Dorian Boguta) is a broke auto mechanic who is trying to move his wife Gina back home after she falls in with a mobster while working in Italy. His trusting manner makes Dinel a loveable pushover who can’t say no even when the odds are against him. Next is Dragos Bucur as Sile, a degenerate gambler who spends as much as he owes at a local bar where he loses bet after bet while never learning his lesson. Sile is the sort of devil on the shoulder character who drags his friends down with him as he bounces from one hair-brained scheme to the next. Finally, we have Pompiliu, played by Alexandru Papadopol, the clean-cut wannabe level-headed one of the group who tries to keep everyone out of trouble by quoting some ill-conceived conspiracy theory about everything and anything, yet always going along for the ride.

The trio’s wide range of idiosyncrasies balances the comedy by giving each a reason to play off of the other to seemingly wacky ends. This kind of character building is typical of farces found throughout comedies of this sort, but the actors are also as endearing as they are foolish. Played with a quick, natural delivery, the leads do well to make these oddballs feel realistic and not too over the top. This stain of broad comedy I’ve noticed in the past few years where played for easy laugh pratfalls and gross-out humor seem to be a scourge in so many films doesn’t show face much here. There are no dick jokes or silly situations where a character falls down a flight of stairs only to spew a lame pop culture reference that will be outdated in a year. The comedy in Two Lottery Tickets is predominantly dialogue-based with a conversational tone that plays more as witticism than crass, even considering the characters involved. Mind you, the jokes can be a touch lost in translation but it only adds to the charm of the piece.

The Set-Up

The film starts simply enough. After dealing with an irate customer, Dinel meets up with his pals for a drink at the local watering hole where he unloads all of his money and relationship woes on his equally downtrodden friends. Convinced by Sile to try his hand at the lottery, the three pool some cash and get a ticket to brighten up Dinel’s spirits. On his way home, Dinel is accosted in his apartment building by two toughs who take his bum bag. The following day, he is ecstatic to find that he and his buddies won the lottery, but whoops, the ticket was in the stolen bag. What follows is a series of bumbling detective work throughout their town to track down the thieves, leading them all the way to Budapest. A simple set-up to a long joke, which introduces the trio to a bevy of side characters and misadventures in their attempt to find the ticket before it’s too late. Along the way, you get a deeper understanding of the main cast and how they act outside of their comfort zone of the local bar.

The comedy is tight but at times a bit slow in presentation. Not to say the film is boring, far from it, more so the style of comedy being dialogue-driven strays away from the wacky antics an American audience might be used to if this were to be remade for a larger audience. Actually, I found the quiet nature of the film refreshing. The in-your-face approach could have easily been taken here, but Paul Negoescu is very dry in his execution making the funny moments a bit more palatable than, say a series of expletives and vulgar escapades. Not to sound prudish while being a huge fan of raunchy American comedy, but the tone is even and somewhat believable without the need to shock the audience with low-brow high jinks.

I will, however, take umbrage with one or two parts of mild violence towards women and children played for comedy and a couple of anti-Semitic jokes peppered in. These are blink and you miss it moments overall, though should be mentioned as they didn’t truly match the style of comedy predominant throughout. Maybe this is a cultural difference, not that that’s a defense, just an attempt to find the reason for them to be there.

Conclusion: A Winning Ticket

Interestingly, this is not the first time Caragiale’s short story was made into a film. After some research on IMDb, I managed to find another version of Doua lozuri from 1957, also made in Romania with a more laconic runtime of only 58 minutes. Little else was available about the film but I’d be very interested to track it down.

For the most part, Two Lottery Tickets is a funny enough premise with a cast that knows how to play to one another’s strengths. Slow at times, yes, but clever in its approach to the material. Negoescu has done well to craft a lighthearted comedy with strong actors, snappy writing, and a sharp balance of comedy and character building. Touted by its creators as one of the biggest box office hits of all time in its native Romania, Two Lottery Tickets is a recommendation for those in need of a laugh without the trappings of an overblown farce.

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Two Lottery Tickets is available in theaters and virtual cinema nationwide in the US on May 21st.

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