Mark Reviews Movies: A CHIARA

A Chiara, NEON

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 26, 2022

At the start, everything more or less seems normal and fine about the family at the center of A Chiara. From all appearances, it's a happy, sturdy family of five, living a comfortable life in the Calabria region of Italy. Because all of this appears too good to be true, such happiness, sturdiness, and comfort cannot last, and the fallout of a mysterious disappearance makes up the bulk of writer/director Jonas Carpignano's narrowly focused but ultimately shallow drama, about a teenage girl trying to learn about and come to terms with her family' secrets.

To be sure, Carpignano's attention to his protagonist, a 15-year-old girl named Chiara and played by Swamy Rotolo, is all-encompassing. She is at the center of every moment of this story, and even when Chiara isn't on screen, that's only because the camera has taken on her perspective of what or who is important to her at that particular moment.

After a brief prologue of sorts that shows how her family functions and plays at home, the action revolves around a party for the 18th birthday of Chiara's older sister Giulia, who's played by Grecia Rotolo. The shared names of the actors, by the way, are no coincidence, and indeed, the casting is a real-life family affair. The father Claudio is played by the Rotolo father with the same first name, and the youngest sibling Giorgia is an example of the same. Carmela Fumo plays the mother with the same name as the actress, and Antonio Rotolo Uno plays a cousin named Antonio, who knows and is involved in the family's unspoken business—but isn't talking without a good reason.

There are more shared surnames in the credits, and that real-world sense of unity and affection comes through strongly when it's most important: at the beginning, as the sisters bicker at home on the couch one evening, while Claudio lovingly plays with and embraces each of his girls, and as the party unfolds, with so many smiling faces appearing and so much enjoyment occurring in the backdrop.

Carpignano revels in the unhurried nature of the early scene and the extended party sequence that comes just before the inciting incident of the plot. Throughout this opening section, there seems to be no plot here, save for hints of something going on beneath the surface—Chiara glimpsing Claudio having an intense conversation outside the house that night and Antonio's gang of associates hovering in a somewhat conspiratorial manner in the background.

The feelings of security and harmony are at the forefront, and even the minimal conflict on display, such as Claudio refusing to toast his eldest daughter out of discomfort or embarrassment or something else, only provides a deeper understanding of the connection between these family members, such as how Claudio breaks down in tears in telling Chiara how much he loves her. A dance competition, which ultimately pits the two older sisters against each other, has a similar sense of solidarity. This is Giulia's night, after all, and in a few years, it will be Chiara's. The younger sister understands and appreciates this reality.

All of that changes in the night. A commotion awakens Chiara, who leaves the house to see her father say goodbye to her mother, climb over the wall surrounding their house, and speed down the street on a motorized scooter. As the father passes his car, it explodes, and Chiara's family and life are upended in ways she refuses to accept and for reasons that she doesn't comprehend. Because of the former, she sets out to discover the latter. When a news report announces that Claudio is fugitive from the law who's accused of being involved in drug trafficking, Chiara's mission immediately becomes more difficult and, with the police and whoever blew up Claudio's car looking for the father, potentially dangerous.

The rest of the plot involves Chiara's search for her father, as well as a series of interrogations of sorts that have the teen trying to pick apart the family's code of silence when it comes to Claudio and his work. The former features haunting dream sequences that reveal some hidden truth, such as when Chiara imagines her living room on fire, only to discover a secret passage that leads to a hidden bunker beneath the house. Her search also takes her to other areas of the region, such as an out-of-the-way Roma community (The movie is the third installment of a semi-connected trilogy from Carpignano, one of which was set among that community, but this story does stand on its own).

Those conversations, though, are the real core here, as Carpignano reveals the extent of the lies and Chiara's mounting frustration in realizing how little she knows about her father, as well as her family in general. Rotolo's performance as our naïve, disillusioned protagonist, whose journey is as much about how she will handle the truth as the uncovering of the truth itself, is assured in communicating how the character begins to reconcile with her internal conflict.

Carpignano's filmmaking, which uses the realism of the performances and the location and the narrative to evoke mood as much as authenticity, is also confident, but despite that approach, A Chiara maintains a limited, rather superficial understanding of its characters and scenario. It's a well-made and well-performed movie that, unfortunately, doesn't add up to much more than that.

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