Poland, 1962. Winter. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska) is preparing to take her vows at the austere convent out in the countryside where she has lived since infancy. The Mother Superior calls her in for a meeting: Anna’s aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza), a controversial judge and public figure with a drinking problem, has a secret to share with her niece and a mystery to solve.

For Anna is really Ida, a Jew given over to the convent at birth after the death of her parents. Wanda isn’t letting on right away, but she knows who’s responsible for their deaths, and she wants Ida to tag along with her on a quest for justice and resolution.

I’ll warn you right up front that “Ida” is not exactly what one would call a day at the beach, and, what’s worse, the frosty atmosphere and spare dialogue won’t do anything to help warm you up on these chilly February evenings. Nevertheless, “Ida” is up for two Oscars, and with over $3 million in U.S. box office earnings, it constitutes one of the most significant foreign-language film crossover success stories of last year (trailing behind only India’s “The Lunchbox” and “Snowpiercer,” if we’re counting the perverse imagination of South Korea’s Bong Joon-ho as a foreign country nowadays).

Despite everything that seems to be working against it, “Ida” has an unexpectedly broad appeal — which, incidentally, is why many Oscar pundits have it pegged as the frontrunner in this year’s Best Foreign Language Film race — though don’t count out the crowd-pleasing “Wild Tales” or the politically incendiary “Leviathan.” At only 82 minutes, “Ida” is short enough and its screenplay tight enough to hold your attention. As a coming-of-age tale centered in large part around a young girl at the crossroads of choosing what role religion will play in her life, it’s also bound to strike a chord with many audiences.

Yet, the film’s greatest assets lie elsewhere. The first, its secret weapon, is Agata Kulesza as Wanda. As Wanda precariously straddles the intersection of the ends of wits and eras, her preoccupation with the past — both the lingering enigma of the death of Ida’s parents and Wanda’s own former affiliation with the Stalinist regime of the 1950s — leaves indelible repercussions on her present and future. Kulesza seethes with repressed rage and regret in all of her scenes, believably letting loose when Wanda lapses into her alcoholic bouts. Given that Ida is by nature the reserved and quiet type, more prone to silent contemplation than to vocal consternation, Wanda is a necessary and engrossing foil to the film’s title character; as portrayed by Kulesza, her otherwise icy personality grows on you.

The film’s second and not-so-secret weapon is its cinematography. Unless you had already seen the film beforehand, its Oscar nomination in that category last month probably came as a surprise. “Birdman” this ain’t, but “Ida’s” place alongside that sweeping single-take is unquestionably deserved. Though it was shot digitally, “Ida” mimics European dramas of yesteryear with its monochrome palette and its 1:33:1 aspect ratio, a squarish screen format that contrasts starkly with today’s sprawling, widescreen spectacles. With one notable and symbolic exception, the camera does not move in any shot, lending to the movie the air of a gallery of exquisite still photography.

Like every lighting and compositional choice in the film, the choice of aspect ratio here is deliberate and thematically appropriate. While smaller aspect ratios elsewhere lend themselves to intimacy (see “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” which was predominantly shot in the similarly boxy Academy format), in “Ida” director Paweł Pawlikowski combines the small space permitted by his choice of screen size with off-kilter framing to create a sense of unease rather than of coziness. Characters are shoved to the corners of the frame to physically parody the emotional and historical claustrophobia of the Polish people in this period.

If “Ida” falters at all, it’s in its writing. There’s something to be said for an economic screenplay that only includes scenes and details that are directly relevant to the forward motion of the narrative and the development of its characters, but this airtight script could use a bit more room to breathe. In the absence of any superfluous dialogue, moments of foreshadowing announce themselves without subtlety. When a couple of last-act twists unfold, it’s almost too easy to recall the earlier scenes that presaged them: Ida and Wanda make some life-altering decisions, but their choices play less like the actions of real people and more like the reactions of characters dutifully fulfilling the roles prescribed to them by an off-screen author.

Still, by the nature of the story there is an off-screen author to account for: God. While Wanda’s doubt prompts her to take a particularly dismal course of action and Ida’s faith leads her in a different direction, the presence of some guiding or all-seeing force — be it divinity or screenwriter — makes itself felt in both women’s storylines. Even as her aunt’s worldly influence (and, of course, the knowledge that she was born Jewish) begins to redirect her off the course planned for her by the convent, Ida ultimately remains in charge of her own destiny. Nothing could make this clearer than the way in which the final shot of the movie is filmed: the icy grip of Cold War Poland on the never-moving camera thaws for the first time in a tracking shot that shakily follows Ida down a new road of her own choosing. Where that road leads is for only her to know and for us to speculate.

Tim Markatos is a senior in the College. The Cinema Files appears every other Friday.