The most recently acclaimed offering from Romanian to burst onto the global cinema world in the past few years, Police, Adjective, maintains the wave’s stark and staunch realism. But this often comes at the expense of the audience’s enjoyment and interest.

Police officer Cristi (Dragos Bucur) trails teenager Alex (Alexandru Sabadac) and his pot-smoking friends with the assignment to discover who is supplying the hashish. He creeps by their local kindergarten-park smoke spot, but increasingly becomes jaded by his work, discovering nothing sinister about their actions. As the case continues, Cristi begins to question the justice of his lawfulness. The prospect of sending Alex to jail weighs heavily on his conscience. At home, the newly wed Cristi confronts similar dissatisfaction; his wife Anca (Irina Saulescu) fixates on an idyllic love song and complains of a marital disconnect.

Cut from the same quasi-documentary cloth as its Romanian cinematic bretheren, the film succeeds at depicting a convincing reality. Writer-director Corneliu Porumboiu achieves this by employing long, often static shots set on the streets of Brasov. An anti-quick-cut artist, Porumboiu strips down the a camera to its original function, causing the film to drag. The sometimes impressive diagolue isn’t enough. The pervasive silence becomes a void.

Unlike 2007’s outstanding Romanian Cannes-winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Porumboiu’s film lacks captivating tension. Though it’s an informational look into Romanian life and an effective morality tale, Police, Adjective needs something more.