This labyrinthine, mind-bending psychological thriller could just as well be called The Girl from Ljubljana, as it follows the unsettling adventures of a Slovenian girl who works as a chambermaid in a posh Italian hotel. Having recently arrived in Italy, Sonia (Ksenia Rappoport) decides to join a speed-dating club, and meets a handsome young security guard. Guido (Filippo Timi) works at a remote country mansion full of valuable art, and one day, hoping to impress his new girlfriend, he takes Sonia out to the house.
What ensues is the beginning of a nightmare. Robbers suddenly appear on the scene, Guido is knocked unconscious, Sonia is almost raped, and the house is surgically emptied of all its treasures. Guido is killed in the struggle that erupts, and the bullet travels on to lodge itself in Sonia’s head. Back at work in the hotel after her recovery, Sonia imagines she sees Guido on the hotel security’s video screens. At the same time, one of Guido’s close friends, a cop, finds himself increasingly suspicious of the girl from Ljubljana and her murky past. He sets out to discover the truth, which turns out to be stranger than reality itself.
As Sonia starts to lose touch with reality in her post-traumatic state, she struggles to maintain a grip on her sanity, all the while avoiding the prying eyes of Guido’s police officer friend. But nothing is at all simple in The Double Hour, and director Giuseppe Capotondi takes us on a roller-coaster ride full of fascinating twists and turns. Just when you think you are on top of the narrative, something else comes along to confound your expectations. But The Double Hour is much more than a piece of smart genre filmmaking. It touches on the ever-present Italian fear of cheap Balkan labour arriving to work in the country, bringing a set of foreign values to the table. Capotondi’s approach is polished and stylish, the script is a tightly wound piece of calculated trickery, and his actors are note-perfect in all their roles. —tiff.net
