Carolina Cavalli – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

MOVIE OF THE WEEK July 17, 2026: THE KIDNAPPING OF ARABELLA

July 12, 2026July 12, 2026 Jennifer Merin 0 Comments Benedetta Porcaroli, betsy bozdech, Carolina Cavalli, Chris Pine, italian films, jennifer merin, leslie combemale, liz whittemore, loren king, Lucrezia Guglielmino, monique jones, motw, nell minow, sandie angulo chen, The Kidnapping of Arabella

Quirky and poignant, Italian writer/director Carolina Cavalli’s The Kidnapping of Arabella tells the story of a young woman named Holly, whose grief and childhood pain conspire to leave her believing that the space-time continuum has somehow brought her face to face with a younger version of herself. As she figures out what to do with that unlikely opportunity, she must ultimately face the reality she’d rather ignore. As the movie begins, Holly, who studies physics and is mourning the loss of her mother, is begrudgingly working at an ice rink, where she opts to blame small holes in the fabric of the universe for unusual moments like randomly finding a tooth on the ice. When, after scamming/bullying a fast-food worker into giving her a free order of fries, Holly encounters a feisty 8-year-old girl in the parking lot, she becomes convinced that the child is, in fact, her younger self, brought to her to give her a second chance at making better life choices. So when the girl offers to pay Holly for a ride to “anywhere but here,” they drive off together.

Reviews

THE KIDNAPPING OF ARABELLA – Review by Cate Marquis

July 7, 2026July 12, 2026 Cate Marquis Benedetta Porcaroli, Carolina Cavalli, Chris Pine, italian films, Lucrezia Guglielmino, The Kidnapping of Arabella

Italian writer/director Carolina Cavalli’s The Kidnapping of Arabella is a delightful, creative film that could be called an absurdist comedy but it is more complicated than that. It is an intriguing, marvelously-acted mix of magical realism and psychological drama wrapped up in an absurdist buddy road trip. It all starts with Arabella, a precocious 8-year-old who is a holy terror to her father, a successful but mournful novelist Orest,, and a chance meeting with a sad, deluded (but very smart) young woman named Holly outside a fast food joint called Taco King. What happens isn’t really a kidnapping, more an escape engineered by clever Arabella, an “assisted” running away in which Arabella essentially tricks mentally-fragile Holly into taking her along, by playing along with a delusion that the little girl is a younger version of Holly herself, magically transported back from the past. This fantastical idea launches the pair on a great adventure across northeastern Italy.

Reviews

AMANDA – Review by Liz Braun

June 28, 2023June 28, 2023 Liz Braun Amanda, Benedetta Porcaroli, Carolina Cavalli, Galatea Bellugi, Margherita Missoni

For her feature debut, writer/director Carolina Cavalli presents everything you ever wanted to know about human isolation in Amanda, the blackly comic story of one Gen-Z misfit. Amanda (the brilliant Benedetta Porcaroli) is 24 and rootless. She lives in Turin with her wealthy family and has no work or purpose, no real goals or structure to her life and no friends or romantic interests. Sometimes Amanda visits an emaciated horse on what appears to be an abandoned property. She looks online for people to talk to and engages in conversation with the Siri-like persona on her phone.

Festivals Reviews

AMANDA – Review by Nadine Whitney

January 22, 2023January 25, 2023 Nadine Whitney Benedetta Porcaroli, Carolina Cavalli, Europa! Europa! Film Festival, Margherita Missoni

The titular protagonist of Carolina Cavalli’s delightfully absurd yet heartfelt film, Amanda has one of the worst cases of arrested development for a twenty-five-year-old in recent cinema history. The film is an absurdist coming-of-age story that is reminiscent of something Lanthimos or Baumbach might have put together but remains completely Cavalli. Amanda is perpetually fifteen, or even younger at times. She’s brilliant, devious, spikey, absurd, and yet somewhat wonderful. Marching across the streets of Turin in her odd (and rarely changing) costume of boots, an eighties inspired peter pan collar shirt, and a granny vest, Amanda is constantly sticking her middle finger up at almost everything.