Critic Reviews

Cavalli has a terrific sense of humor and a droll aesthetic, seemingly drawing from an influential well filled by drops of Wes Anderson, Jim Jarmusch, Sofia Coppola, and the Coen brothers. The Kidnapping Of Arabella also sets a high bar for road trip films: the journey is worthier than the destination, as it should be, but specifically because the film’s journey lives up to every definition of the word on philosophical, comical, and emotional levels.

It is perhaps Guglielmino’s lovely, artfully artless performance as Arabella that will do most to mollify those who are uncertain whether to be charmed or annoyed.

A quirky, offbeat road trip and kidnapping dramedy, Carolina Cavalli’s The Kidnapping of Arabella moves through a variety of tones and genres in its relatively short runtime. Absurd, funny, and almost deadly serious with its moral implications, it’s a film that never fully synthesizes disparate tones while still managing an interesting little lark.

The Kidnapping of Arabella arrives at a satisfying destination because it finds a certain peace in the knotted fabric of space and time.

The Kidnapping of Arabella stages a tug of war between Hollywood’s dream factory and Italian neorealism, and the latter appears to have the final say.

Cavalli does a nice job of balancing the story’s mischievous elements with life’s everyday qualities. It’s almost as if the filmmaker decided to make her own “Paper Moon” by way of a gritty and down-to-earth Jim Jarmusch movie of sorts.

The long tail of Fellini can be sensed wagging through every quirky character and unwaveringly deadpan exchange.

For the most part, the movie is a shapeless exercise in enjoyable lunacy, so a lot depends on whether the final act brings everything together in a satisfying way. It does so incompletely.

Young lead Porcaroli and the even younger Guglielmino show off terrific comic timing while colorful cameos from an assortment of mesmerizing character actors, especially Eva Robin’s as a kooky aging showgirl, add sparkle. Still, this is evanescent stuff, hardly weighty enough to get mad about with respect to the aforementioned problematic areas.

The Kidnapping of Arabella is a strange film, but not in the way it’s aiming for. It feels imbalanced, owing to the compelling, sympathetic central pair brought to life by two great performances, who are forced to interact with truly unpleasant characters in an uninviting world. This odd, destabilizing energy makes for a film that actively pushes viewers away, even if the concluding minutes beg for the audience’s tears, and by that nature, their approval.