2023's excellent dramedy Amanda introduced us to the Italian double act of writer/director Carolina Cavalli and her leading lady Benedetta Porcoroli. After a brief flirtation with American cinema (Cavalli co-wrote Babak Jalali's Fremont while Porcoroli had a role in the Sydney Sweeney horror movie Immaculate) the duo have returned to Italy to reunite for The Kidnapping of Arabella, and they've brought an American star back with them in the form of Chris Pine.
Porcoroli excelled as the titular Amanda, a directionless young woman who found some purpose when she befriended another outsider. The Kidnapping of Arabella doesn't deviate very far from this formula. Once again Porcaroli essays a cynical, snarky twentysomething living a listless existence who gets a spark in the presence of a stranger.
But before Porcaroli appears the film introduces us to Orest (Pine, surprising everyone with an Italian-language performance), a successful but miserable writer, and his precocious eight-year-old daughter Arabella (Lucrezia Guglielmino). Orest has dragged his kid along to a ceremony where he is to be honoured, but Arabella would rather visit the local branch of fast food joint Taco King. In the movie's funniest sequence, Arabella heckles her father by screaming out the name of his greatest literary rival, Jonathan Franzen, and threatening to expose his tax-dodging.
When Arabella sneaks away to Taco King she comes across Holly (Porcaroli) munching on French fries in her car. Obsessed with the idea that cracks are appearing in the time/space continuum, Holly convinces herself that Arabella is her younger self, having somehow travelled through time. Unhappy with how her life turned out and struggling to get over her mother's passing, Holly sees Arabella as a way to reshape her own destiny. She abducts the kid, who is all too willing to leave her father, and sets off on a quest to right perceived wrongs.
It's certainly a compelling setup, but Cavalli doesn't make enough hay from the novel idea of a deluded protagonist who believes they're in a time travel adventure. We know from the off that Arabella isn't really Holly's younger self, which kills much of the potential for dramatic tension. Holly's journey has a rather vague destination - she wants Arabella to be enlisted in the dance class she failed to take seriously as a child, believing that to be the source of all her subsequent woes. It makes sense that the clueless Holly doesn't know where she's going, but the movie itself seems to be winging it in similar fashion. It's never made clear just what exactly we're supposed to be invested in here, and the narrative never hints at a possible outcome for Holly that won't end badly.
References like "Taco King" and town names like Santa Rosa and La Cruz seem wilfully anachronistic for Italy, more evocative of road movies set in America's SouthWest. At one point Holly and Arabella pass through a border checkpoint, though they never actually leave Italy. Might Cavalli have initially envisioned this tale to play out in the US? As with Amanda, her second film's influences are mostly of the American indie cinema variety, though the casting of supporting actors with memorably angular and exaggerated features nods to Fellini. Even the whitewashed villages her protagonists stop off at have the appearance of the sort of hamlets you might find on the US-Mexico border.
Little of note happens on those stops though, and there is no real sense of a rapport developing between Holly and Arabella. Nor is there enough conflict between the two leads, a lack of obstacles for them to overcome. Holly's voiceover narration tells us she's being affected by Arabella's presence, but there is little screen evidence of this. The Kidnapping of Arabella is a series of vignettes peppered with deadpan gags, some of which land but many don't. Despite Porcaroli's kooky charisma, there is little to keep you engaged on this road trip. You might find yourself asking "Are we there yet?", but it's never clear where "there" is in this case.
Directed by: Carolina Cavalli
Starring: Benedetta Porcaroli, Lucrezia Guglielmino, Chris Pine
