‘The Spiral’ Review – A Dread-Tinged and Tragic Faustian Tale [TIFF]

When it comes to our loved ones, the terrifying truth is that we cannot truly protect them. Oh, sure, we can wrap them in bubble wrap, lock them in a room, and throw away the key if we’re so inclined, but that won’t save them. It might even be worse than the alternative. We’re just one insignificant mortal in a universe that can swallow us whole at any moment. And in Paolo Strippoli’s The Spiral, that knowledge creates an incessant dread percolating around every corner.

Penned by Strippoli and Salvatore de Chirico, The Spiral begins on a rainy afternoon. Anna (Jasmine Trinca) arrives at the door of her daughter Alice (Romana Maggiora Vergano) unannounced. Alice isn’t thrilled to see her mother, nor is Anna all that excited to be there. Because she has a story to tell. More like a horrific family secret, really, one that she believes has cursed her and her loved ones. But is it real, or is it all the machinations of a mother struggling to accept the torment her children have been through?

Even if you’re not a mother, you’ve felt something like what Strippoli explores here. That nagging feeling that the universe is against you. That no matter what you do, one way or another, it will find you and it will destroy you. It’s like a shadow always lurking in the background, a pair of malevolent eyes that pay closer attention to you than Santa Claus. And just when you think things can’t get any worse, it leaps out and declares, that’s what you think.

From the moment the film opens, Strippoli imbues The Spiral with the suffocating dread that such a notion implies. We meet Anna on a plane, turbulence shaking it around as if it could burst at any moment. Outside, clouds spiral around like some sinister wormhole, ready to suck her into its depths. Know that feeling when you get a call late at night and immediately suspect it’s bad news? That’s the sort of dread lingering in every corner of every frame. As for the spirals that appear every so often, are they all in Anna’s mind? Perhaps. But by the time we meet her in 2026, she has plenty of reason to be paranoid.

Strippoli’s Faustian tale is split into chapters that follow each family member through time, including Anna’s husband, Walter (Adriano Giannini), and their son, Tobia (). The first takes us back to 1999, where it all began. There, we meet Anna’s wealthy, picturesque family, made literal by a photo of them all happy and together that frequently reappears. Following a horrific accident that leaves one of the children mangled, Anna meets a mysterious woman named L’estranea (). She offers a deal: save the child’s leg but bring a different kind of torment on the other. A life for a life, so to speak. Of course, said deal goes horribly wrong. And it keeps going wrong as Anna makes one bargain after another to avoid the consequences.