‘The Double Hour’ Cheats Audiences With Multiple Twists

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Rating: 2.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Early in “The Double Hour,” our heroine (a very effective and nearly movie-saving Ksenia Rappoport) goes to a speed dating session. The movie that follows is not unlike a cinematic version of that modern way of meeting people in that it jumps genre to genre like a suitor jumping tables. The result is a film that has marveled people with its labyrinthine plotting but that ultimately feels about as deep as a speed date. You never really get to know it.

“The Double Hour” refers to the 24 times a day when the clock reads the same hour and minute (for example, 11:11 or, in military time, 22:22) and when a wish can be made (or things can get a bit spooky, as they do in the middle act of the film). Like nearly everything in the story, the odd happenings at “The Double Hour” are meant to add an air of mystery to the proceedings but ultimately just add to the clutter.

Double Hour
Photo credit: Samuel Goldwyn

As “The Double Hour” jumps genres – including drama, immigration commentary, social piece, romance, thriller, ghost story, family drama, and more – it’s difficult to care. Audiences who have fallen in love with the movie, claim that it takes multiple viewings to appreciate, but that’s more due to there being nothing there than too much. It takes multiple viewings to try to convince yourself there’s a way to connect the dots that the director never bothered to draw in.

“The Double Hour” opens with a suicide. The chambermaid Sonia (Rappoport) who was the last person to speak to the victim becomes the heroine – death, loss, pain, and unexpected twists become the immediate foundation of the film. We follow Sonia to a speed dating session where she meets the charming Guido (Filippo Timi), a former cop who is now a security guard for a wealthy estate. He takes Sonia to the estate, turns off the alarm sensors so they can roam the grounds, and are quickly set upon by men in masks to rob the place. Sonia wakes up with a wound and Guido is dead. Or maybe not.

After the relatively standard romantic set-up, “The Double Hour” goes haywire for its entire second act. At times it plays like a Roman Polanski paranoia piece as Sonia thinks she sees the ghost of Guido and the creepy hotel guest might be stalking her. At other times, it seems like a relatively standard thriller as secrets about the robbery are revealed. And then it all collapses.

Double Hour
Photo credit: Samuel Goldwyn

After the most major twist of all, it turns out that “The Double Hour” has merely been cheating the audience for a majority of the film. Everything you have invested in is moot. And the material isn’t thematically resonant enough to warrant that twist. It’s really just a director playing with styles for the sake of doing so. Rarely has a film taken a turn that rendered the previous hour as frustrating as in “The Double Hour.” That’s called cheating your audience.

It takes incredibly talented directors like Polanski to make a script like “The Double Hour” resonate. Director Giuseppe Capotandi has an interesting visual eye but he can’t maintain the atmosphere needed to make what is a dreamlike film work. When the plot twists and the genre changes, the movie keeps tripping over itself. Some viewers have mistaken such twists for genius instead of just an elaborate trick.

“The Double Hour” would be much more of a disaster if not for the magnetic performance by Rappoport. She carries the film quite considerably when one considers that her character is nothing more than a device. She adds emotional weight to the proceedings and nearly saves it. But not quite.

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com