A sleazy businessman (Tihomir Arsić) takes a young female employee (Bojana Novaković) to a rural area and rapes her.

The group, having realized the con man has abandoned them, does not prevent the bus from leaving because they are still determined to get the full benefit of the spring's healing waters.

Dan Fainaru of Screen International wrote a positive review for The Optimists in which he stated that, besides the film's "seemingly gloomy viewpoint", the director's "compassion is as pronounced as his sarcasm, and his sympathy for his characters no less evident than his derision."

Fainaru tied the Candide inspiration to Paskaljević's "attempts to pinpoint some of the reasons that have held his part of the world back in the past and still do to this day", he commented that the director "plays his cast like a virtuoso", that he "displays superb confidence in his choice of camera set-ups" and commended the cinematography, music and art direction.

[6] Bill Weber for Slant Magazine agreed: "This autumnal statement compensates for its fixed despair with bracing wit and a willingness to see acceptance of misery as the best of all possible options".

Harvey stated that although the "stories' conceits have promise", "there's a certain flatness of execution that reduces everything to the same watchable but dispiritingly minor plane."

Commenting on the separated narrative structure, similar to Cabaret Balkan, he stated that "Rather than parting on a note of irony or resolution, most of these tales simply deadend when situations have achieved their equilibrium of hopelessness and defeat."

He reservedly commended the acting, appreciating Ristovski's work for "nimbly vanishing into five separate roles" and commenting on the other performances as being "solid if seldom inspired".