FLOWING

A car accident leaves a family broken and searching for healing in Rome. Barbara (Aurora Menetti), the young daughter, struggles to relearn how to use her body after her injuries. Enrico (Francesco Gheghi), the teenage son, buries his guilt by acting out and having an affair with an older woman. Thomas (Fabrizio Rongione), the widower father, resents his son for causing the tragedy. As torrential rain summons a strange gas from the sewers causing mass hallucinations across the city, the family relives the events leading up to the accident. A combination of repressed memory and anger drives Thomas and Enrico to confront their history in a bloody, nightmarish finale. FLOWING distinguishes its terror by allowing its characters to experience the events through a dream logic while affected by the gas. Familiar settings and situations are stretched and twisted by the hallucinatory toxin as the characters move in and out of their present lives, their past memories, and their fantasies and fears. As the family works through their own problems while under the influence of the gas, each fight and scare feels cathartic and powerful. FLOWING further distinguishes itself through Francesco Gheghi’s ability to bring a lot of dimension to a difficult character — a teenage bully carrying on an affair with a maternal figure to avoid dealing with his guilt over his mother’s death. Enrico would be easy to hate, but Gheghi gives his character depth by centering his performance on Enrico’s immaturity and repressed sadness. (AUSTIN KING)