One of my favorites from the last few years has been right under my nose and I hadn’t noticed – La Doppia Ora (The Double Hour) starring Kseniya Rappoport and Filippo Timi (Time Warner is calling him Filippo Tomi) is available on demand. Time Warner has listed it with the indies instead of with the international movies and I missed it.
La Doppia Ora has something that not many modern Italian movies have – a fear factor! There were a few things that made me jump right out of my seat, and I found myself covering my eyes. And it was done in the best kind of way; the threat was hidden in the shadows, waiting to jump out and say “boo” at any given moment.
It stars someone I’ve just recently written about, Kseniya Rappoport from “La Sconosciuta”. In this movie, as in that one, she plays a kind of “unknown woman”, one that has secrets. Her character, Sonia, meets Guido (Filippo Timi from “Vincere” and “The American”) speed dating and at first they appear to be a couple of poor damaged souls that gets lucky at another chance at love. It doesn’t take long to realize that in this movie, appearances are always deceiving.
“The Girl By The Lake” is billed as a thriller, but I’d like to say to the filmmakers who made that movie and to all Italian movie makers – THIS movie, La Doppia Ora, THIS is what you call a thriller. It has all the mayhem, menace, and edge of your seat suspense that a good thriller should have. I know that I want to see it again – it’s just one of those movies that you know you missed clues the first time and need to go back and see what they are.
I don’t want to give away too much but the focus, which is on Sonia, becomes blurred between dream and reality, and I may never be sure of her no matter how many times I see it.
This one is not to be missed and I recommend it highly.
The Double Hour – 2009
Director: Giuseppe Capotondi
Writers: Alessandro Fabbri, Ludovica Rampoldi
Stars: Kseniya Rappoport, Filippo Timi and Antonia Truppo
I Love Italian Everything 