Meet Bobita. Bobita is a foul-mouthed, Andrew Tate-loving misogynist with a bald head and goatee who brags about his Maserati and pretends to roar as the MGM lion saying “Blow me.”
He is also the alter ego of Romanian actress Ilinca Manolache, and the alter ego of her character in Radu Jude’s new film Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World, out now in limited release.
In the film Manolache plays Angela, an overworked and exhausted production assistant, who drives around Bucharest trying to recruit victims of on-the-job accidents to appear in a PSA for an exploitative company. Every so often she stops and makes a video as Bobita, standing on the side of the road or in bathrooms to turn the camera on herself as she describes sex acts in wildly profane ways. While most of the film is in black and white, Bobita appears in glorious color. It’s utterly hilarious, and one of the most unique uses of social media aesthetics in a film to date.
Manolache, who mostly works in Romanian theater, came up with Bobita in 2021 near the end of COVID-19 lockdown. Frustrated by the largely conservative theater scene, she was itching to make something personal and was inspired........