You could use one of those glib Hollywood pitches to describe “The Unknown Woman” (“La Sconosciuta”): Why, it’s “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle — Italian Style!” But because this character-driven thriller builds through the unhurried rhythms and sincere purpose of refined European drama — and not Hollywood genre dictates — we actually come to care deeply about this nanny from hell.
In today’s case, a mysterious Ukrainian woman named Irena is from, without exaggeration, a hell on earth. In her sadomasochistic hell of female victimization and criminal male cruelty, the most frightening villain in the movies this year reins over her and forces on her the “stage name” Georgia.
We gradually learn the gruesome details of her past in chilling flashes as her current motivations are slowly revealed. They come out through her haunted memory as she desperately insinuates herself into the lives of a small Italian family in this critically acclaimed winner of five Italian “Oscars” (called the David di Donatello Awards), including for Best Picture. It’s directed and written by Giuseppe Tornatore, known for an acclaimed love song to the movies, 1988’s “Cinema Paradiso.”
