Dreadfully Boring

A Major Disappointment

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Blistering performances.

Irena (Kseniya Rappoport) is a mystery woman obsessed with getting the nanny job with a particular family. She bribes the building's manager to clean the common area. She befriends the family's nanny and then she even trips her down the stairs to her death. Valeria Adacher, her daughter Thea, and husband Donato have a secret safe in their apartment. Thea is pushed around at school and Irena uses unconventional measures to toughen her. In the continuing flashbacks, Irena is an Ukrainian prostitute who finds love with a young man. That past is never far from her mind and comes back to harass her.This is a movie precious with its ultimate reveal. It does a great job creating some misdirections. It lasts a bit too long. The reveal should come sooner allowing a more compelling action thriller third act. It's a compelling mystery for the first hour. The sex slave montage does get repetitive and possibly reveals too much. This could be a more compelling thriller if it's tighter.

One of the most positive aspects of "La Sconosciuta"/The Unknown Woman concerns emotional crisis affecting the morale of affluent European families.This has been depicted without resorting to even an ounce of sensationalism.Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore shows how personal lives of young professional couples are getting affected due to differences of opinion.His film depicts how a middle class family completely loses control over their only child.This is meant to be a foundation on which the film rests but the story is shaped in such a unique manner that viewers also get to have an idea about servants from different east European nations.There is no documentary cinema type realism in scenes where foreigners try to get themselves regularized. This is exactly one department where the film goes out of control as viewers are shown glimpses of how women are sold on Italian soil.It is not clear what Italian cinema author Tornatore wanted to convey as his film appears much too flashy.It jumps from thriller to family drama to social statement all at same time.In a way,this would surely confuse viewers as it is expected that they would like to enjoy one thing at a time.

A little hard to follow and a little hard to swallow, this film by the director of Nuovo Cinema Paradiso is gritty and loose. A dark controlled chaos in skilled hands, it feels like an army of films rushing at you all at once. It's a bit overwhelming until the grabs you, sucks you in and won't let you go performance of Xenia Rappoport kicks in. She's a magnet in the middle of a mysterious mayhem. It's too bad that the style and substance of the film will prevent it from ever becoming popular because her portrayal of suffering and sheer determination is one for the history books. The woman's got chops. She moves like an insect through the undergrowth of her seedy milieu with an androgynous, unkempt beauty that's both tempting and invisible. She's able to shift her portrayal from one emotion to another, and then another, without moving a muscle in her face—a skill few actors possess. It's her story and we follow her through it not knowing exactly what she's after or what she will do with it when she seems to have it in her grasp. That's the unknown part and Rappoport plays the mystery for all it's worth. She works the complex narrative inside her head and lets the revelations drip out slowly, uncontrollably.Director Giuseppe Tornatore says this film is about a woman reclaiming her power as a woman (there's a great big serving of motherhood with that) after it has been stripped from her from every angle imaginable. Rappoport's character is the victim of a human slave trade that uses immigrant Eastern European women to make babies for the upper-class. She's gotten out of it, but with a lot of baggage. Some of it is misplaced and some of it is hurled at us in short, chaotic flashbacks in the beginning of the film (that's the hard to follow part), slowly unfolding to more understandable scenes as they catch up with her present life at the end of the film—a nice structural technique by the director.Roger Ebert wrote a review of this movie which essentially lists the aspects of it he thinks he understands and the aspects he thinks he doesn't. He scores a little above average, I think, which is about as good as anyone is probably going to do. There's a noir-ish component (not a stylistic one) to the film where major events and character traits are unleashed which are way beyond the reality of any mere mortal's life. There are also plenty of cause-for-pause moments when you will consider if the means justify the end. That's the hard to swallow part but I'm not complaining. It is a movie after all, and if you've read many of my reviews you know that I take all comers when it comes to plot gymnastics as long as they don't infringe upon the integrity of my players, as long as they don't cause incredulity to appear on the faces of the actors because they don't believe the script. Giuseppe Tornatore is lucky, or smart, to have enlisted an actress with the strength of Xenia Rappoport. ET coulda popped in here and I don't think she would have missed a beat.Speaking of beats, Ennio Morricone scored this film with superbly.

Tornatore has already earned a spot in cinema's hall of fame with its tribute to the movies. He certainly took his time to come up with a film that comes close to match the masterpiece "Paradiso" is, and he might have surpassed it with its emotional impact. "Paradiso" builds on nostalgia and sweetness; "Woman" is a raw, better executed project that explores emotions ranging from sweetness to plain, relentless evil.Kseniya Rappoport plays the title role and does what very few actresses have ever managed to do, a nearly flawless performance, a role of such magnitude and complexity that might serve as inspiration for future generations in the way Vivien Leigh and Meryl Streep set the bar before in "Gone With the Wind" and "Sophie's Choice". Both of those films introduced women who survived, without ever allowing their spirits to become sad entities. Instead, they thrived in the devastating circumstances of each's ordeal. Irena is another survivor, one that can't allow anything to lose her focus. She is driven to recover some of the happiness she found and lost, and with her new "family" she might just do that.Tornatore's storytelling is not linear, and it is one hell of a story, one that will grab your interest, squeeze your heart until it begs for mercy, and one that is bound to provoke more than a few uncomfortable reactions in the audience, as it unfolds each of its many layers. It is modern day Italy, and a woman shows up in a building, asking for work in order to survive. Soon, we learn she has apparently more than enough resources to do very well on her own, but she has a rather dark and traumatizing past, one that is still haunting her, and as we eventually discover, one that might prove to be lethal to a few people in the story.Irena is a formidable woman, a determined fighter who learns quickly and uses her resources fearlessly. She is no superwoman, and eventually learns that her past is still very much affecting her current decisions. Watching the movie, it is hard to keep your eyes away from Irena, as she slowly gets closer and closer to her goal. As we observe her actions and arrive to the heart stopping final minutes of the film, we also wonder what is it that kept her trapped for so many years since she is so able to manipulate people in her current incarnation. It is the only time we question the character's make up, yet we can also remember that Darwin argues the fittest will survive.The film is a work of exquisite writing and editing, with sure direction by Tornatore and one superb score by Ennio Morricone, one that only adds more power to individual scene and is as memorable as some his classic compositions. "Woman" is guaranteed to keep your eyes glued to the screen, and pretty much like "4 Months, 3 Weekss, and 2 Days" last year will leave you gasping for air and reaching for your heart, as we become witness to a story that will pull you its powerful reach but will also repulse because of some dark elements in the make up of human nature.It is an instant classic!