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THE KIDNAPPING OF ARABELLA

Carolina Cavalli| Italy | 2025 | 107 min. | O.V. in Italian, subtitles in Spanish and English
- P.ARMAS 2

Twenty-eight-year-old Holly wishes she was someone else. When she crosses paths with a young girl who wishes she were older, running away to teach her novelist father (who fancies himself the next Jonathan Franzen) a lesson, Holly becomes convinced that 8-year-old Arabella is her reincarnation. Benedetta Porcaroli (Best Actress in Venice’s Orrizonti) reunites with director Carolina Cavalli following 2022’s Amanda, displaying extraordinary chemistry with the charming Lucrezia Guglielmino and a scene-stealing Chris Pine in Italian mode. Together they lead us on a delightfully unhinged road movie, full of minor mischief and mistaken identities—which is very much the point—offering a tender, witty take on unfulfilled expectations and rewriting the past (or making peace with it, at least). Somewhere between Il Sorpasso and Little Miss Sunshine, this existential comedy captures the zeitgeist of the FOMO generation, for whom life always seems to be happening elsewhere.

Director and screenwriter: Carolina Cavalli

Cinematography: Lorenzo Levrini

Editor: Babak Jalali

Sound: Francesco Liotard

Production: Antonio Celsi, Annamaria Morelli

Producer: The Apartment, Elsinore Films

Cast: Benedetta Porcaroli, Chris Pine, Lucrezia Guglielmino