The Spiral: Fantastic Fest Review

For most of us, there aren’t many things we wouldn’t do for the people we love. Of course, there are limits—or at least you’d hope there would be. Say you have two kids, and something terrible happens to one of them. Would you change your other child’s life to save the first? That’s just the first question posed by Paolo Strippoli’s perfectly titled movie The Spiral, in which one mother’s attempt to save her family sends everything spinning into chaos.

Anna (Jasmine Trinca) has the kind of family everyone envies. Her husband, Walter (Adriano Giannini), owns a successful clothing store, and their two kids, Tobia and Alice, have everything going for them. Life couldn’t be better—until their new dog turns vicious during a party and severely mauls Alice’s leg. Alice has just landed a high-profile commercial, but now she may lose her leg. Distraught, Anna heads to the hospital chapel to pray. God doesn’t answer, but someone else does.

A stranger (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) offers to save Alice’s leg, but there’s a catch: Tobia will gain a significant amount of weight. Anna initially refuses, but after some back and forth, she agrees. Alice’s leg is saved, and soon Tobia’s life starts to unravel. In the present day, Anna arrives during a fierce storm to tell the now-grown Alice (Romana Maggiora Vergano) what happened. As it turns out, that wasn’t the only time she agreed to save one person at another’s expense. Needless to say, it’s quite a story—and one that could tear this family apart for good.

Written by Salvatore de Chirico and Strippoli, who also directs, The Spiral unfolds in four chapters, each centered on a different family member. It’s an intriguing structure for a film that feels refreshingly original. We often wish we could make our pain disappear, but here, relief comes at someone else’s expense. That idea taps into something painfully real: the ways parents can pass their trauma onto their children. The film also explores appearances, social status, and the lengths people will go to protect both, with bursts of gore driving home the consequences of Anna’s decisions.

The Spiral is at its best when it picks up speed, pulling us along as this family falls apart. Each new bargain reveals just how far Anna will go to preserve her family’s status, and how much those choices cost everyone around her. Guilt, obsession, and love feed into one another, making every attempt to fix things, is another step toward disaster.

The cast is great, with Trinca and Tedeschi doing especially strong work. Tedeschi is a standout as the Stranger, and when she and Trinca go head-to-head, they deliver some of the movie’s best scenes. I love how Strippoli lets the tension build naturally while still making room for powerful emotional moments. He’s like a conductor bringing every part of a complicated piece of music together. For this family, the song is anything but happy. For the audience, though, it’s a tune that gets stuck in your head—in all the best ways.

Brian Taylor

Member of the North Texas Film Critics Association, and lover of all things Cinema