‘Waterdrop’ Review: A Rape Allegation Kicks Off a Probing Examination of Corruption and Impunity in Gripping Drama

variety.com:

Manuel Betancourt In a world where corruption runs rampant, only money — not truth, let alone justice — reigns supreme. The men in Robert Budina’s “Waterdrop” take that statement as the organizing principle of their lives.

It is their dogma, the only way they understand the world. But the drama at the heart of Burdina’s gripping Albanian drama comes from its lead, a city hall manager who thinks herself equally above the law, finding out in real time how such a system depends on the kind of latent if not outright violent misogyny she’s convinced herself she exists outside of, when she is really its most obvious example.

Aida (a standout Gresa Pallaska) is a woman in charge, a woman whose pride in her own privilege and power makes her immune to imagining a world where she doesn’t get her way.

In her work, she’s used to charming (and sometimes bribing) foreign investors to do her bidding, to sign the many building contracts that allow her and her husband Ilir (Arben Bajraktaraj) to live a moneyed, carefree life in the small town they’ve made their home.