The Kidnapping of Arabella Review: Quirky Italian Road Trip Comedy

      Carolina Cavalli’s The Kidnapping of Arabella is a quirky and unconventional road trip dramedy that navigates through various tones and genres within its brief runtime. Absurd, comedic, and almost intensely serious regarding its moral themes, the film struggles to fully harmonize its contrasting tones while still offering an engaging escapade.

      One of the most peculiar choices in this film filled with oddities is the casting of Chris Pine, who delivers his lines entirely in fluent Italian as Oreste, Arabella’s (Lucrezia Guglielmino) father, a somewhat celebrated novelist. At the start of The Kidnapping of Arabella, he is getting ready to give a speech at an award ceremony in his honor, bringing along his precocious and honestly irritating seven-year-old daughter. All she desires is tacos from the nearby fast-food joint, Taco King, and to avoid the children's table at the event.

      Once they arrive, her clear boredom erupts into outbursts, the most bizarre (and humorous) being when she yells out the name of novelist Jonathan Franzen, teasing her father's evident feelings of inadequacy compared to the well-known American author. Frustrated, Oreste tosses a bundle of euros to his limo driver, instructing him to take Arabella back to Taco King for food and then home. However, upon reaching the restaurant, the driver leaves Arabella unattended. She encounters Holly (Benedetta Porcaroli), a woman struggling to make ends meet.

      Recognizing that Arabella is pretending to limp—a trick she once used to escape dance practice as a child—Holly convinces herself that Arabella is her younger self, sent by the universe to rectify her past errors. Holly agrees to take Arabella with her on a journey to find her former dance instructor, Granatina (Eva Robin’s), hoping to have her train the “younger” Holly to amend the mistakes made by the “older” Holly.

      As suggested by the film's title, Arabella goes along with this, leading Holly to believe she is a younger version of herself as a way to escape her father. The narrative then takes on a disorganized format: Holly and Arabella travel, stay in motels, and find themselves in various predicaments on their way to Granatina.

      Cavalli’s bare-bones script lays the foundation for something intriguing, with Holly deceiving herself into viewing Arabella as a method to rewrite her past. Does she genuinely believe this child is a younger incarnation of herself? Or does she perceive it more as a form of imaginative escape from her mundane life? This question hovers throughout much of the film, largely due to Porcaroli's portrayal of Holly as a bit eccentric.

      At times, she is overly protective of Arabella, while at other moments she encourages her to play alone at a motel pool. While not wholly maternal, it's evident that she cares for Arabella. A drawn-out scene in which Arabella discovers a gun and treats it like a new toy is amusing in theory but feels jarring given the film's core themes.

      Pine, quite adept with his language skills, appears in far fewer scenes than anticipated, merely serving as a break from the main storyline involving Holly and Arabella. He occasionally shows up to argue with his ex-wife or seek comfort from a sex worker who offers to read his latest pages to him. That scene is quite humorous but seems to be isolated from the rest of the film. This somewhat encapsulates the entire project: individual moments are funny and peculiar but fail to weave together into a coherent narrative or thematic flow.

      While kidnapping comedies are not new, the filmmaker layers Holly’s youthful trauma in a way that diminishes the film's quirkiness. When the conclusion inevitably arrives and Holly must confront the fact that she has kidnapped a child, the film shifts into an ending that emphasizes her inability to revisit the past, forcing her to confront her choices. This poignant finale is striking against what is essentially a farce. Although it may not work perfectly, there are commendable moments as Cavalli explores various directions—some successful, others less so.

      The Kidnapping of Arabella is set to open in New York theaters on Friday, July 17.