REACTION TIME

One morning like any other, a thick fog begins to envelop everything. Anyone who is outside and is reached by the fog dies corroded, while others remain barricaded inside the house. This is what happens to the family consisting of father Attilio and two children, Tommaso and Elisabetta, who wait fearfully for the phenomenon to pass, confused by the complete lack of information and worried about Gloria, the wife/mother who left the house and did not return. After a few days of hardship, a noise attracts the attention of the three: someone has entered the house! Fundamental starting point: to make a good film you need a good idea. And "Tempo di reazione" undoubtedly has a good idea at its base. Loosely inspired by Alessandro Fabbri's story "Il Re degli immuni," "Tempo di reazione" represents the feature film debut of director Antonio Micciulli from Messina, already known in the festival circuit for the short film "Piccolo manuale di strategia e tattica militare." Micciulli, also director and producer of the film, decides to use the language of genre cinema for a metaphorical story with broad scope, capable of addressing themes of significant social depth and at the same time telling a story of death and despair, horror and forced isolation. At first glance, it is impossible not to think of "The Mist" and "Right at Your Door," films with which "Tempo di reazione" shares more than one suggestion, starting with the fog (in the second case ash) that hides threats and its hypothetical military origin, or the isolation that becomes paranoia. At the same time, however, an original political/social vein can be seen that offers various keys to interpreting the work. If examined exclusively from the point of view of genre entertainment, "Tempo di reazione" is convincing halfway. On the one hand, there is an intriguing story that has the great merit of never being predictable, thanks to the unexpected development that the narrative acquires as the minutes pass; on the other hand, however, the story sometimes seems to give itself too many pauses, to get stuck in some redundancy up to a climax that is certainly spot-on but lacks the pathos it deserved. If we go further in depth, we can see an interesting reflection on the human condition in a situation of forced dependence on institutions, or on those who act on their behalf. Tommaso, Elisabetta, and Attilio are suddenly forced to live a life of hardship and sacrifices, unaware of what is happening, at the mercy of dark events that leave them with a question mark about the most immediate future. When Samantha bursts into the lives of the three, everything changes: comfort and security but in exchange, there are compromises. A do ut des that irreparably pushes the situation towards degeneration. According to the director's own statement, he wants to tell us, in the form of an allegory, the relationship that exists between organized crime and society, a society made up of fear and omertà, of favors given and received, of illusions and tragedies. It is not wrong, however, to see in the figure of the woman, or rather the women, who surround the common people represented by the three family members a symbol of power in a broader sense, perhaps political, ready to exploit, squeeze the society that elects it to such extremes. A society that is nevertheless unable to rebel, disarmed, cowardly, opportunistic when it can, sometimes also a bit mad, represented in a flashforward with a genuinely misogynistic (but also no) flavor that opens the film. The social aspect of "Tempo di reazione" works, makes it a different film from the independent landscape of which it is a part, and gives it that added value that makes it worth remembering. Then let's not forget that "Tempo di reazione" is an independent thriller/horror that adds to that Italian panorama of low-budget genre productions that today appears more alive than ever. Good performances by the actors, both the experienced Fulvio Falzarano ("Le rose del deserto") and Cinzia Mascoli ("Viaggi di nozze") and the young Chiara Stampacchia, Andrea Dianetti, and Romina Carancini, the latter two with the talent show "Amici" behind them. Convincing and curious is the chromatic choice that Daniele Baldacci's photography gives us, which changes from warm to cold colors based on the protagonists' state of mind. What is not convincing, however, is the writing of the dialogues, which are deliberately too often broken. That is, most of the sentences the characters pronounce are not completed by them and, while always providing a complete meaning to the speech, give a frustrating feeling of incompleteness. Well, perhaps it is a more refined screenplay that ultimately is missing from "Tempo di reazione," a smoothing/finishing of the narrative corpus and a "normal" choice in writing the dialogues. For the rest, the film is there, it is different in a landscape that often looks to the imitation model, it captivates at times and surprises at times and above all makes you think. Rounded up vote.