‘Unknown Woman’ slick but implausible

Published 5:56 pm Thursday, October 23, 2008

In 1988, Italy’s Guiseppe Tornatore made “Cinema Paradiso,” an Oscar-winning semi-classic. He hasn’t made an interesting movie since. Now comes “The Unknown Woman,” an unpleasant thriller with a sadistic streak.

His previous picture was 2000’s “Malena,” which spent a couple of hours ogling Monica Bellucci. “The Unknown Woman” provides Tornatore another strong lead actress, Russian-born Xenia Rappoport, who goes through a lot in this picture. She makes the film’s implausible plot twists almost bearable.

We are following Irena, an immigrant from Ukraine, newly arrived in a Northern Italian town with a roll of cash in her pocket and a dark history as a sexual slave.

Her past emerges in violent flashbacks. As for her present, she’s sneakily working her way into the life of an upper-class couple who have a young daughter.

Irena is hired as the family’s nanny and housekeeper, but her methods are peculiar. When she deliberately knocks the current nanny down a flight of stairs, for instance, we might begin to wonder whether we’re watching the heroine of the movie.

That’s just an early example of the movie’s surprises. But the more surprises there were, the less I believed the story.

This is one of those tricky scenarios sometimes described as “intricate.” Actually, it just relies on a series of events going exactly right. Irena couldn’t possibly have planned all this out, but things go just as she needs them to go.

And even then, the movie’s mystifying. I’m still not sure about the two men dressed as Santa Claus who beat Irena in a dark alley one night. What do they hope to achieve from this, and why are they dressed as jolly old St. Nick?

“The Unknown Woman” is not only preposterous but slick and flashy, as though Tornatore were trying to cover up the weakness of the plot. The locations in Trieste are nice, but the lurid bondage scenes and the showy editing add nothing.

Claudia Gerini and Michele Placido are strong in support, but this is Xenia Rappoport’s film, and she’s exceptional, able to carve out small moments of nuance within the overall nonsense.

There’s a decent score by octogenarian Ennio Morricone, a legend. The film won a bunch of Italy’s top film awards, including best picture and actress. So maybe those awards are worth about as much as the Oscars.