Could the next time be blood? (Samuel Goldwyn Films). Entertainment Weekly is a registered trademark of Meredith Corporation All Rights Reserved. What then could turn into a heist movie, becomes something more cerebral and haunting. Review | "The Double Hour" Matthew Lucas May 29, 2011 0 Comments. In "Repulsion", Catherine Deneuve plays Carole Ledoux, a catatonic young woman who's repulsed by men, while in "The Double Hour", Sonia goes one step beyond catatonia; she's in a coma, and the repulsion this hospitalized accomplice to art theft feels is for herself. At that point, Peggy Lee lyrics went humming through my mind ("Is that all there is? The exhilarating second act of the film is the equivalent of waking up in a bathtub full of ice with your kidney missing. Your comment is But the real cue to the movie’s miserable disposition is in the film’s murky look; all the actors appear so pale and wan they could have loped into this from a zombie movie. Like the soundman in "Blow-Out" who saves the prostitute from a near-death experience where air is in dearth supply(below the river waterline), Guido rescues Sonia from her subterranean predicament(a hollowed-out grave). What appears at first to be a Euro variation on David Lynch’s patented mind games, though, ultimately settles for more conventional pleasures. Here's the thing: We enjoy a good mindf--- lark as much as the next filmgoer, but such fluid tomfoolery eventually has to add up to something, and The Double Hour ultimately doesn't. Nothing in this enjoyably twisty, cool/ hot, genre-grafting Italian psychological thriller by Giuseppe Capotondi is what it seems. The script by Alessandro Fabbri, Ludovica Rampoldi and Stefano Sardo is a sort of variation on the Hitchcock model of thriller where the plot becomes a metaphor for the psychological dilemma that bedevils the hero. I was very disappointed in this movie. like any good movie you develop hopes for the characters and even though they might not come true, you respect the artfulness of the story you're told. And the more you try to solve the narrative puzzle, the more you may want to watch it again — or at least argue about what’s real. This is because much of its incidental pleasures derive from surprise; since the narrative is so full of reversals, twists and things-that-might-be-true-but-may-not-be, any attempt to describe its action in detail is truly treacherous. Sonia (Kseniya Rappoport) is a Slovenian immigrant who works as a chambermaid at the type of hotel Dominique Strauss-Kahn would stay at. Everyone has his or her doppelganger except Sonia, although by the end it’s pretty clear that she’s her own double. Can you trust your eyes, or your emotions for that matter, to tell you what is actually happening on screen? could not find your e-mail or password. For more on movies, go to www.boston.com/movienation. As Sonia's murky past resurfaces, her reality starts to crumble. Which studios released the best movies in 2011? If you're offended by sex used callously to manipulate others, FUHGEDDABOUTIT! Amid Giuliani controversy, Borat is hosting a live watch party. It's Guido the "Friendly" Ghost. With a mop, he swabs away the alcohol, evidence of his violent temper. In this psychological thriller, the double hour is loaded with significant dread. If you hate foreign language films, ARRIVEDERCI! The moviegoer hears what she hears when she takes them off. In the 1981 De Palma film, a B-movie soundman out in the field collecting effects for another bad slasher flick, hears a gunshot just before a tire blowout, causing the debilitated car to lose traction on a two-lane bridge, whereas in "The Double Hour", Guido is pistol-whipped by Sonia's beau(a correlation to the gunshot), causing an instantaneous scream to emanate from the woman's throat(a correlation to the blow-out). This is a neat variation on the idea of the fateful chance encounter. this link is to an external site that may or may not meet accessibility guidelines. Justin Simien’s horror comedy “Bad Hair,” starring Vanessa Williams and newcomer Elle Lorraine, adds layers to its race-based workplace discrimination tale. Pasquale Catalano’s insistent music, however, tells us a different story. Sonia (Ksenia Rappoport), a young woman from Eastern Europe, has recently moved to the northern industrial town of Turin. Smoldering and slick, “The Double Hour’’ wants to mess with your head. After they leave the city for a romantic getaway in the country, things suddenly take a dark turn. For what makes this tale something more than a puzzle to be solved is a level of emotional impact that genre exercises don’t often provide, emotion traceable to sensitive acting that is similarly rare. “The Double Hour’’ is a decent night at the movies, filmed with swank professionalism, moody lighting, and the proper attention to the curves of a lover’s skin. I've seen the fabulously acted Italian thriller The Double Hour twice now, and for all its intricate manipulations, it stays with me for a very simple reason: The love story at its bittersweet heart is played for keeps. The Double Hour is the type of film that is difficult to describe, an elevator pitch of a few lines might get one intrigued, but a full review should not give anyway of the secrets and pleasures of a breathless, energetic thriller. Here, bad things happen at the double hour; characters who are supposed to be dead, turn out to be alive.