Hungarian romance on Prime Video shows that love comes when you least expect it

The initial interest in “The Suitor” usually arises from the apparent simplicity of its premise: a marital agreement limited by term, tailored to satisfy family and financial conveniences. However, the narrative led by Ida, played with calculated restraint by Dorka Gryllus, expands this framework. The young woman returns to the outside world after years in the convent and realizes that the only structure she recognized as stable, her father played by Attila Tóth, has fallen apart amid excesses, impromptu parties and a bride whose age directly confronts any reasonable notion of responsibility. The script moves Ida from an environment of forced discipline to another type of tutelage: the need to find an acceptable social destiny so as not to become a nuisance.

The father’s decision to publish an advertisement offering his daughter in marriage, despite the obvious ethical discomfort, highlights the pragmatism of the period portrayed. The arranged marriage with Csaba, lived by Gergely Kaszás, works as an administrative solution. He needs money; She needs a way out. The agreement is simple: a year of respectful coexistence and then divorce, which would allow Ida to live alone, a privilege inaccessible to a single woman who had never been married. This logic, absurd to contemporary eyes, is treated naturally by the film, and the dramatic effect arises precisely from this friction between rigid social restrictions and individual survival strategies.

The coexistence between Ida and Csaba is built without haste, with small confrontations and adjustments that reveal two characters trying to avoid any deep emotional bond. His reserved behavior and her naivety, the result not of foolishness but of continuous isolation, create a moderate field of tension, in which each gesture carries greater moral and social implications than it appears. The moments of humor, almost always led by the maid Kati, played with excellent timing by Enikö Börcsök, function as necessary breaks in an environment governed by antiquated codes that weigh on everyone.

The film focuses on details to demonstrate the distance between declared intentions and the feelings that begin to emerge. The sequence of the false report about the first meeting, created to impress Csaba’s friends, exposes an interesting contrast: Ida imagines a romantic scenario, while he counters with pragmatism, stating that a painter would never dedicate his entire life to the same image. Later, when Ida visits the studio and comes across a collection of her portraits, the narrative highlights the silent emotional evolution that the couple had been trying to deny. The predictability of the event does not weaken it; on the contrary, it reinforces the morally restrained character of the story, which does not depend on surprises, but on emotional coherence.

The management keeps its attention on the rigidity of social conventions, suggesting that, for Ida and Csaba, affection becomes a natural consequence of a coexistence that both tried to transform into bureaucratic commitment. The plot structure allows us to observe how the characters adjust to imposed limitations, circumvent other people’s expectations and build minimal spaces of freedom within rules they did not choose. The performances are discreet, the pace is constant and the film focuses more on observing the couple’s daily lives than on explosive conflicts.

The result works with delicacy, but without excessive sentimentality. “The Suitor” outlines a direct emotional journey, based on restrictive social circumstances and the attempt of two individuals to reorganize their lives with dignity. The film’s interest is less in surprise and more in the clarity of the process: absorbing the limits, testing what is possible within them and discovering that, even in agreements born of convenience, certain bonds end up imposing themselves with the naturalness of something that was simply built in silence.