There’s something appropriate that it’s an anthill that tips off the fact that something may be amiss in “The Spiral” as it feels like the film that Paulo Strippoli has been building towards incrementally over the past five years, showing flashes of brilliance over a wildly prolific period as he’s made the macabre thrillers “A Classic Horror Story” (co-helmed by Roberto De Flo), “Flowing” and “The Holy Boy” in quick succession since 2021. The way one production has flowed into another has been almost as fluid as the elaborate yet elegant long takes that Strippoli clearly enjoys, and that proclivity turns out to be ideal to usher audiences into the life of luxury that’s expected by Anna (Jasmine Trinca) and Walter (Adriano Giannini) in their palatial new home, ready to raise their two children, Alice (played at different ages by Gabriella Telegrafo, Mariaandrea Cesari and Romana Maggiora Vergano as an adult) and Tobia (Alessandro Carbonara, Adrea Rossini and Andrea Genovese), cushioned in wealth they themselves couldn’t likely fathom when they were young. While the couple finds the dollar can only go so far in protecting their kids from the whims of a vicious world, Strippoli himself makes the most of having his greatest resources to date for a wickedly entertaining dark fable.
For all the eye-catching entertainment that Anna corrals for a housewarming party, it is the unnerving sight of a swirl of ants seemingly swayed by the Coriolis force in the opposite direction than you’d think that draws the most attention as the kids gravitate towards the dirt and their parents are busy enjoying their cocktails and it proves only the start of what’s a downward spiral for the family when it precipitates a horrific injury to Alice, whose mother imagines an illustrious career in acting for after booking an ad for Barilla. She isn’t the only one who has high expectations in the family when Tobia’s father will empty out his considerable wallet to see his son become a soccer star, yet both parents’ best laid plans are upended in different ways when as Anna prays for her daughter’s recovery from being bitten by the family pet in such a way that would leave her permanently disfigured, she is met in the hospital rectory by a mysterious woman (a delicious Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) who she comes to believe could help her, though it comes with the catch that she’s explicitly told by the stranger that it’ll lead to some tragedy befalling her son.
While Anna either can’t or won’t recognize this as a literal deal with the devil, “The Spiral” leaves no doubt that the gates of hell have opened, with Strippoli operating with a grandeur that he has flirted with in the past. Delivering preposterous fun that may raise as many questions about your own good judgment as the characters’, the ultimate story being told may be a relatively slender one, held together by a framing device that sees Anna going to her estranged daughter’s apartment to inform her that her whole life’s been a lie when it seems a bit too late for that for many reasons – on a rainy night, Alice isn’t any more inclined to let her in – but it sets up an epic across the past 25 years divided into four chapters, one for each member of the family after Anna has brought a plague upon their house. Rather than build a legacy, the destruction of the clan from within when Anna and Walter would seem to sacrifice the present for as they’re preoccupied with their kids’ futures is seen for the cascading tragedy that it is, a feeling driven home by all the personality that Strippoli packs into the enthralling tale of children being deprived of the opportunity to define themselves.
“The Spiral” does not yet have U.S. distribution.