52 Films by Women Vol 9. 28. The Kidnapping of Arabella (Director: Carolina Cavalli)

Pictured: Holly (Benedetta Porcaroli, left) and Arabella (Lucrezia Guglielmino, right) at a chapel where the young girl makes money as a flower girl in the quirky Italian comedy, 'Il Rapimento di Arabella' ('The Kidnapping of Arabella'), writer-director Caroline Cavalli's entertaining sophomore feature. Still courtesy of Piper Film (Italy)

Italian writer-director Carolina Cavalli makes films about headstrong young women who act as if dealt a special hand. Amanda, her debut, featured one such woman. The Kidnapping of Arabella (Il Rapimento di Arabella), her follow-up, has two. Holly (Benedetta Porcaroli) believes that eight-year-old Arabella (Lucrezia Guglielmino) whom she meets in the parking lot of Taco King, is herself having fallen through time and space to provide the opportunity for a do-over. Holly can follow-up on the opportunity of being a ballerina, something she avoided aged eight, pretending to affect a limp. When Holly sees the child similarly dragging her leg she makes the connection.  Only Arabella doesn’t have any motivation for her action. It is just something she does. She demands to be taken away in Holly’s car while her father’s driver is fetching her food at her request; Arabella’s father is a famous author (Chris Pine, acting in Italian). Arabella offers money, something Holly doesn’t have and, reading the older woman’s name tag, gives her name as Holly. Holly only agrees having convinced herself of her own logic, being a student of physics and having just been fired from her job at a local ice rink after taking revenge on one of a group of young boys who wanted to see her attend to a red stain. They claim it was from a menstruating girl; it is actually from a strawberry slushie.

Cavalli’s brand of behavioural comedy might seem an acquired taste, but it is easy to like. The motivations of both protagonists are entirely relatable. Arabella wants her father’s attention on her terms, not his. Holly wants to change her life, feeling that she betrayed herself when young. Arabella never admits to what she wants but is prepared to go with the flow to escape a man who won’t buy her a meal from Taco King, won’t allow her to sit on the adult table at the ceremony he attends, expresses envy of Jonathan Franzen and doesn’t pay his taxes. Family is important to her father, who puts her on a table with other children and an entertainer dressed as a chicken and reads with passion and sincerity until Arabella shouts out, ‘Taco King’, ‘Franzen’ and ‘taxes’. He instructs a driver to take her anywhere she wants and then home, a mistake which costs him.

Both Arabella and Holly get their own prologues. Arabella’s begins with her squatting in the long grass – an implied toilet break – and tearing a long piece of grass into strips. Seeing flattened packaging for Taco King she demands fast food. Her father, dressed in a black suit and black tie, like a Reservoir Dog, refuses to give her ‘dinner before dinner’. She screams in his ear to which he does not respond. Then she takes her seat round the other side of him and screams in his other ear. We wonder briefly whether she might be the daughter of a criminal, which I suppose she is, if not paying taxes is illegal.

Holly’s prologue involves her being thrown out of the house where she is staying. It used to belong to her parents and she ‘sleeps better there’. The couple living at the house show surprising levels of tolerance, the husband more than the wife. After she is fired from her job at the rink, Holly blackmails an employee. She wants Euro 300 ‘to buy a hat like hers’, even though we are sure her colleague’s hat did not cost that amount. She then blackmails an employee at Taco King to give her free fries or else she will expose him for not wearing a hairnet and for wanting to be in a boy band. ‘I don’t want to be in a boy band,’ he replies. The employee looks like a man trying to present as a woman, an unfair target for Cavalli.

Once on the road, Holly, wearing a tee shirt that reads, ‘I lost my heart in San Francisco’, drives too fast for Arabella’s liking. Arabella vomits. They check into a motel. Holly offers some of Arabella’s cash as a bribe, giving her name as ‘Britney The Pooh’ – ‘that’s The Pooh’, she adds for emphasis. Hearing music, Holly asks to leave the child alone for ten minutes. Arabella isn’t keen. While Holly is in the room next door, Arabella slips out of her room and goes to the pool. The young receptionist asks her to sign some papers, otherwise she’ll kick them out. Once inside, she asks for the rest of Arabella’s money. ‘Ask the other woman,’ Arabella tells her. As well as being wilful, Arabella is both observant and resourceful. She takes the pistol under the receptionist’s desk and points it at her. Meanwhile Holly is drinking alcohol in the room next to her own. The phone rings. ‘Probably because the music is too loud,’ Holly’s host explains. ‘Can you put on an old lady’s voice?’ he asks Holly. ‘I can do a robot voice,’ Holly explains. ‘Can you dance the robot?’ she asks him. ‘No, but I can dance the frog,’ her host replies. Cavalli then crosscuts between Holly leaving the room and the man performing a frog dance. This best illustrates the quirkiness of the film’s humour.

By the time she gets to reception, Arabella has pulled a gun on the receptionist. The receptionist has a nosebleed. They leave, Arabella wearing an adult robe. While she is asleep in the car, Holly takes the gun. Arabella awakes and wants it back. Eventually, Arabella watches while Holly buries it in the dirt. If Arabella can’t keep the gun, neither can Holly. They are supposedly the same person after all.

Naturally the police have been called. The investigating officer, a Nick Cave lookalike, is smitten with Holly and knows she is responsible. He phones her but she doesn’t answer. Arabella’s father complains of seeing the same policeman, who can tell him very little. He is joined by his ex-wife, Arabella’s mother, a narcissistic former model who wonders if anyone asked about her. Arabella’s father explains that her window of fame was between 1992 and 1994. So, the answer is no. She responds by mentioning Jonathan Franzen.

Having stolen the receptionist’s car – one with an open top – Holly tries to sell it, only the buyer knew it wasn’t hers. ‘The other car was nicer,’ Holly adds. The pair need money to achieve Holly’s objective of travelling to La Creuz and asking an aged performer (Eva Robin’s) to help Arabella become a ballet dancer. Holly knows how to get it - by offering Arabella’s services as a flower girl.

A young groom isn’t initially keen to attract any additional expenses. His bride persuades him. Before long, Arabella is hired for multiple weddings and appears in multiple photographs. As Holly and Arabella are about to leave, having earned somewhere between 90 and 120 Euros, an old woman invites them to attend her reception, first Arabella but also Holly. Holly seeks assurance. ‘You mean me?’ ‘Yes,’ the old woman replies. Holly is ecstatic. The old woman tells them how pleased she is, then, not moving, tells her how pleased she is again.

At the party, Holly decides she must speak. She stands on a chair, invites all the guests to her graduation party and declares this to be the happiest day of her life. As she speaks, we want her to stop, fearing the worst. This illustrates just how much we have come to empathise with her. The bride wants a word. A golden egg has been stolen. ‘It’s an egg made of gold,’ the woman explains. ‘But what’s inside it?’ asks Holly. Holly did not steal it, but Arabella did. ‘You stole food from supermarkets,’ Arabella says as justification, referring to an earlier scene not mentioned above. ‘You should never steal when you’re a guest,’ counters Holly.  Holly leaves the egg behind. They continue their journey, staying at a motel. Discovering her photograph on the front page of a newspaper, Arabella quickly covers it with soda, scrunches it up and discards it in an alley. She then attempts to change her appearance while stealing clothes from a washing line. She is spotted and unexpectedly makes a friend. Topper wants to hang out with her, though they have little in common. ‘I play soccer,’ he tells her.

Holly gives Arabella two ice lollies, one to offer to Topper. She wants to leave; Arabella to stay. To facilitate this, Arabella drops one of the ice lollies into the car’s petrol tank, which of course prevents their departure. Before then, she is greeted by a group of children, one of whom asks for her lolly. They are keen to know her name. By this point, Arabella has reclaimed her identity.

Divine intervention takes place in the form of a group of nuns who give Holly and Arabella a lift to La Creuz, where Holly has arranged to meet the policeman who was sweet on her. Holly visits the woman who offered to make her a ballerina, and the film quirks its way to a conclusion. This includes a hearing in which Arabella is ‘replaced’ by a television, Holly being all too literal. Amongst new company, Holly thinks that a woman who doesn’t speak to her is her friend and a chicken on a spit resembles a music box.

Encountering a woman who insists she is her adult self, Arabella is normalised. Through meeting Topper, it is implied that she has learned to enjoy the company of other children. Our final image of Arabella is the young girl staring at the camera, her childhood intact, her life a series of chapters yet to be written.

Reviewed at Screen Five, Picturehouse Central, Shaftesbury Avenue, Central London, Sunday 12 October 2025, 09:40am, London Film Festival Press and Industry screening