Chris Pine Goes Italian in a Film With Uneven Cinematic Language

Dino Risi’s “Il Sorpasso” (1962) was marketed in English-speaking countries as “The Easy Life,” but when translated from the original Italian its title connotes the passing of one car in front of another. Risi’s international hit wasn’t the first road movie, and its pairing of temperamental opposites was similarly tried-and-true — in this case, a tightly wound law student and a brutish ladies man. A commedia all’italiana with Freudian connotations, “Il Sorpasso” told us that alarming things happen when there’s no mediation between the super-ego and the id.Alarming things are similarly afoot in Carolina Cavalli’s second feature, “The Kidnapping of Arabella,” but they are nowhere near as “icky” as hand-wringing critics might lead you to believe. Granted, the kidnapping of a child is no laughing matter, nor are the psyches of a generation hobbled by lives led online. Still comedy can be mined from the least amenable of sources. The director-and-screenwriter based her screenplay, in part, on “serious reflections I found on Reddit and other online forums “about coming-of-age in the 21st century.”“The Kidnapping of Arabella” is firmly in the tradition of “Il Sorpasso,” not only because of geographical provenance, but because it generates a distinctive tension between comedy and, if not drama per se, then a kind of existential malaise. How Italian that makes Ms. Cavalli’s droll picture is a matter best left to sociologists, but even a cursory observer of cinema will be able to pick out the influence of David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino and, especially, the tight-lipped tomfoolery of Joel and Ethan Coen. Ms. Cavalli’s sprezzatura is recognizably dry in character.“The Kidnapping of Arabella” is a picaresque picture that begins with a brilliant flourish and a surprising bit of casting. Who knew that Chris Pine, an actor best known for his portrayal of Captain James T. Kirk in a recent series of “Star Trek” reboots, had a way with Italian? But there he is, playing an American novelist, Orest D., who is visiting the Veneto to accept a literary award. Even without bringing a tempestuous 8-year old daughter, Arabella (Lucrezia Guglielmino), Mr. Pine’s character seems frazzled beyond his years. Orest D., you see, has long held a grudge against the American novelist, Jonathan Franzen.Mention of Mr. Franzen’s name is a running gag early on in the proceedings, as are intimations of Orest D. playing fast-and-loose with his responsibilities to the taxman. We learn these facts from Arabella who, though gussied up for the awards ceremony, isn’t keen on being there. A fast food chain, Taco King, is on her agenda and Arabella acts the perfect brat by repeatedly interrupting her father’s oh-so-poetic acceptance speech. Orest D. steps down from the dais and shuttles off Arabella to a chauffeur with orders to locate the nearest Taco King. Mr. Pine is good at both portentousness and exasperation.Things go awry as they must. The chauffeur has little experience minding children. When Arabella is momentarily left unattended she ties her fortunes to a twenty-something woman idling her car nearby, Holly (a fetchingly forlorn Benedetta Porcaroli). The two girls go on an adventure based on an unlikely pretense involving time travel. We are left, then, to marvel at Ms. Guglielmino’s cutey-pie punim and to worry at how Ms. Porcali will navigate a character who is equal parts whimsy and addlement. She does her best with a role whose idiosyncrasies are less indicative of a troubled soul than Ms. Cavalli’s willfulness as a writer. Contrivance is no friend of fiction.The filmmaker has nonetheless created a shaggy dog story of ragtag merit. Flashes of magic realism punctuate long stretches of absurdist revery. It’s to the director’s credit that when the hard disappointments of life are made plain to the protagonists, particularly in the guise of a showgirl played with world-weary aplomb by Eva Robin’s, she does so with a bracing lack of sentimentality. Mention should also be made of Marco Bonadei’s deadpan take on a cop for whom love trumps duty. The upshot of Arabella’s abduction is that Holly ends up being consigned to a mental health facility and is brought before a jury of her peers. Ms. Porcaroli brings ballast and distance to a denouement that is as soppy as you might feared and, darn it, heart-rending all the same. Ms. Cavalli has crafted an entertainment whose breeziness of affect elides the bumps in its construction. “The Kidnapping of Arabella” has charms to recommend.

Chris Pine Goes Italian in a Film With Uneven Cinematic Language

Chris Pine Goes Italian in a Film With Uneven Cinematic Language

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