MOVIES: 'The Unknown Woman' worth knowing

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By Christian Toto

Irena will do anything, even push an old lady down the stairs, to get closer to an affluent family in the new Italian thriller "The Unknown Woman."

But why?

"Woman" yields the answers through a tantalizing drip of information that pools into an implausible but tart thriller.

It's also one messy affair, filled with blunt sexuality and the kind of gore you might see in a "Saw" sequel.

Irena (Xenia Rappoport) is a Ukrainian housekeeper for hire with a savage past that we see initially via flashbacks. She finds a steady gig in a building that also is home to an attractive couple and their young daughter.

Our heroine immediately sets her sights on that family. She swipes their apartment keys from their elderly nanny and rummages through their trash for any usable scraps of research. She simply must get access to their living quarters, a determination that forces her literally to push aside their nanny to gain entrance.

Once ensconced in the new job, Irena begins snooping around as soon as the family members are away. Is she after the family's jewelry collection? Or something else?

Also, why does Irena put the family's precocious daughter (Clara Dossena), who has a rare condition that prevents her from protecting herself, through grueling exercises bordering on abuse?

The countless flashbacks, which grow in length and brutality, are tough to watch. However, they effectively set the stage for Irena's compulsions. Still, it takes a great deal of patience to sort through and make sense of the myriad clues seeded through the film.

It all might be for naught without Miss Rappoport's clarifying performance. She keeps Irena, and the increasingly warped story, on firm ground.

Ennio Morricone's hyperactive score starts goosing the thrills from the opening sequences, but it's so unabashedly baroque that it's hard to quibble with its intensity.

Writer-director Giuseppe Tornatore may be renowned for his heartwarming 1988 film "Cinema Paradiso," but he's working from a far darker palette here.

"The Unknown Woman" throws in a few too many wrinkles in the revealing final moments. The ending plays out with the kind of tick-tock precision that happens only in a screenwriter's head.

★★★

TITLE: "The Unknown Woman"

RATING: Not rated (Nudity, sexual situations, adult language and disturbing imagery)

CREDITS: Written and directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. Music by Ennio Morricone. In Italian with English subtitles.

RUNNING TIME: 120 minutes

WEB SITE: http://www.theunknownwoman.com

MAXIMUM RATING:FOUR STARS