Winner of last year’s Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, Alice Rohrwacher’s The Wonders might come as a bit of a surprise to some viewers. While Cannes has a reputation of profiling the big, brash and bold of arthouse’s finest—last year’s top prize went to a 3+ hour Chekov-inspired drama, after all—The Wonders goes in the opposite direction of its competitors. It’s a quiet, enchanting coming-of-age tale about a unique family in the Italian countryside, one that drives itself almost entirely by what’s hidden underneath the surface. It’s an approach that doesn’t necessarily work all the time, but it certainly establishes Rohrwacher as a rising talent.

The family at the center of Rohrwacher’s film appears to be run by 12 year old Gelsomina (Maria Alexandra Lungu), who helps run the family business of beekeeping and honey-making with her dad, Wolfgang (Sam Louwyk). She also looks after her three sisters, Marinella, Caterina and Luna, when her mother, Angelica (Alba Rohrwacher, Alice’s sister), can’t, and also relies on the help of family friend Coco (Sabine Timoteo). Rohrwacher keeps exposition to an absolute minimum, but her script drops several hints of the family living a purposely isolated existence (at one point, Coco implies they lived in some sort of commune in the past). And as Gelsomina starts growing into a young woman, her desire for independence and exploration clash with her family’s self-contained lifestyle, creating a slow, underlying tension.

That tension gets amplified through two developments which make up most of The Wonders’ plot. The first comes in the form of the arrival of a TV production around the area. Gelsomina continually eyes the show’s host (Monica Bellucci, rocking a ridiculous white-haired wig) with curiosity and amazement, and when she learns that the show is offering a cash prize to the “most traditional family” in the area, she jumps at the chance to put her family on the show. Wolfgang wants no part in Gelsomina’s plan, but the growing animosity between them suggests it has to do with everything but the program. The other addition of stress to the family comes when new farming regulations threaten to put an end to the farm’s honey business. In order to get cheap labour to help bring the farm up to standard, Wolfgang signs up for a service that lets him hire young delinquents. But once the quiet, handsome 14 year old Martin (Luis Huilca Logrono) shows up to work, Angelica freaks out, wondering if he will be a bad influence on the girls.

It’s to Rohrwacher’s credit that she manages to introduce these elements without succumbing to the temptation of melodrama. That winds up being Rohrwacher’s biggest strength, as her well-observed, warm eye for her characters infuse the film with a naturalism that feels truly special. It takes a lot of skill to portray this family’s quirks, like Wolfgang’s penchant for sleeping in a bed outdoors, without it falling into caricature. It’s because Rohrwacher never shows an ounce of judgment towards her characters, or the way they choose to live their lives. Almost every moment feels real and unrehearsed because the characters’ specific qualities work inward rather than outward. They combine to form a distinct, yet completely believable portrait of one family, instead of being used as an easy joke to compare their strange behaviour to people’s idea of a “normal” family unit. It’s a breath of fresh air that radiates throughout every frame.

That’s why The Wonders’ first half, primarily focusing on establishing Gelsomina and her family’s routines, works wonderfully. The plotline involving the TV show, one of the film’s biggest faults, suffers from having too much time dedicated to it. Once Gelsomina gets interesting in auditioning for the program, it’s apparent that they’ll end up on the program somehow, making the build-up a bit of a drag to get through. But right when it looks like Rohrwacher might have overstayed her welcome, her film takes a surprising turn for the enigmatic. It’s a bold move, and yet it blends seamlessly within the world Rohrwacher creates. That successful change-up summarizes what makes The Wonders a film that can, at times, turn into something magical. In this low-key tale of a close-knit family, Rohrwacher makes it feel like anything can happen.

Originally published on March 27th, 2015. The Wonders opens in select theaters on October 30.

There are a million ways to parent these days. And at least ten books to choose from, each backing up and “certifying” that this way or that way of raising a child is the perfect way to do it. And whether parenting is instinctual or learnt is a never-ending debate, but most authorities seem to agree it’s certainly a mix of both. The line dividing instincts and learned behavior (and how trustworthy each is) is one of the more fascinating parts of observing parenting—and most assuredly a point of dissent among parenting theory enthusiasts—and director Saverio Costanzo taps into this intriguing area with equal parts sympathy and horror. With Alba Rohrwacher (I am Love, Constanzo’s The Solitude of Prime Numbers) and Adam Driver (in his first feature lead before he takes over the world when Star Wars: Episode VII comes out) propelling the film with mesmerizing and emotional performances, Hungry Hearts is sickeningly distressing and heart-stirring.

Capitalizing on the chemistry between its main characters, Hungry Hearts starts in charming romantic fashion. Driver’s Jude is abroad on a business trip and meets Rohrwacher’s Mina in rather a stressful style. Mina accidentally walks in on Jude, holed up in a restroom sick from food poisoning. She attempts to leave and finds the door has locked itself behind her. Stuck together in a most uncomfortable, and malodorous, situation they have nowhere to go but up and with an amusing meet-cute story to boot. From there, time progresses—they are together in New York City facing the possibility that Mina be transferred out of the country for work. But work-life decisions are waylaid quickly by news that Mina is pregnant. Surprised and scared, the two embrace this new development in their relationship and marry. At their quaint Coney Island wedding Jude’s mother encourages Mina to visit her any time and Mina reveals that her own mother died when she was a baby and she and her father no longer have a relationship. She practically glows with her enthusiasm to form her own new family.

Early in her pregnancy Mina shows skepticism in modern forms of pre-natal care. She rejects her doctor’s wishes that she eat more and try to gain weight for the baby’s sake, preferring to eat a strict vegan diet that doesn’t provide enough nutrients for her child. She rejects her morning sickness, believing it instead to be a sign that she needs to eat more “cleanly.” When she walks by a psychic’s business one evening, she goes in, visibly relieved to hear her child is an “Indigo” child, a New Age concept marking a person as “special” and possibly containing supernatural gifts. Throughout her pregnancy and into child-birth Mina rejects Jude’s advice and the guidance of her doctor, but despite the odds she does give birth to a relatively healthy child, albeit underweight.

Blinded to outside reason or science, Mina is totally devoted to her child and filled with the overwhelming conviction that she’s following true instinct and correctness. Rohrwacher could so easily have given Mina a psychotic edge, discrediting and demonizing her, but her love and devotion are played out with such ferocity it really does look like instinctual mothering. As Mina wastes away, following the same diet as her poor infant, she appears almost to toil for her child’s sake, as though sacrificing for him. The most obvious parallel would be to Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby. Mina’s skeletal back and sunken eyes look quite reminiscent of Mia Farrow’s slight form as her child sucked the life from her.

Constanzo also employs other horror tactics, most obviously the hovering camera—using a fish eye lens high above the characters to simultaneously make Mina look even more waif-like and also act as an evil eye of sorts looking down at the increasingly complicated scenario playing out. It’s a distracting technique, deliberately so, and marks a rather shaky transition within the film from problematic family drama to dread-inducing horror. Each of the film’s transitions, from dating to marriage, from couple to parents, and all the way up to the film’s rather unnerving (and maybe overly dramatic) ending, are rough edged. They feel off, but can’t really be considered pitfalls of the film—as the situation gets more and more complicated, the feelings each progression stirs up are meant to match the progressively frightening story. Similarly the music choices of the film feel intentional, with songs often starting at the tail end of scenes and bleeding into the next in a way that contrasts rather than unites these scenes. It all comes together to feel wrong, but its all supposed to.

While Rohrwacher elicits sympathy and terror as Mina, it’s Driver who truly grounds the film, keeping it from slipping too far into horror territory and giving it the sliver of sanity it needs. Driver perfectly depicts Jude’s manic and fractured needs as they waffle between his love for his child and instinctual desire to keep him alive, and his overwhelming love for his wife and his wish to trust her and try to make their family unit work. It’s how convincingly both Driver and Rohrwacher convey these competing “instincts” that really presents a compelling look at parenting and especially its effects on the relationship of the parents. Though obviously a dramatic and extreme version of parenting, Mina and Jude’s behaviors don’t feel too far off from what many of us know of parenting techniques out there, a spooky thing to consider.

Luckily the film doesn’t feel overtly political on the subject of parenting, instead focusing its energy on the psyches of its protagonists. Alone in a foreign country with no family of her own, Mina crafts a world that feels right for herself, and torn by the competing love of spouse and of child, Jude reacts the way he must. Constanzo has created a harrowing and hard to watch film, but the sincerity of its performances and the tantalizing and rather unexplored content it delves into, make for the sort of film that is impossible to turn away from. Sure to evoke a range of reactions from parents, couples, and singles alike, Hungry Hearts is nuanced psychological terror at its best.

Hungry Hearts is out in New York on June 5 and LA June 12. 

This year’s Venice Film Festival Coppa Volpi award winner for Best Actor (Adam Driver) and Best Actress (Alba Rohrwacher) Hungry Hearts will be released domestically by IFC Films, after the company acquired the film’s North American distribution rights. Hungry Hearts received several accolades at Venice before stops at the Toronto International Film Festival (where WTI saw the film), the Rio de Janeiro Film Festival, London Film Festival and more.

The film stars Driver and Rohrwacher as Jude and Mina, an American man and Italian woman who meet awkwardly in New York City. Soon, the couple have a child together, and differences between the two make circumstances even more strained. Hungry Hearts is written and directed by Saverio Costanzo, who received a Special Mention in the Venice Film Festival’s Pasinetti Award.

While the film has no confirmed release date yet, it’s likely due to be part of a big 2015 for Adam Driver, who aside from returning to Girls will appear in Jeff Nichols’ Midnight Special, inspire fear in Star Wars: Episode VII, steal scenes in Noah Baumbach’s comedy While We’re Young and travel to 17th century Japan with Martin Scorsese’s upcoming Jesuit priests film Silence.

The opening scene of Saverio Costanzo’s first English language film Hungry Hearts defines the meaning of situational irony. It begins with Mina (Alba Rohrwacher) discovering she has walked into the wrong bathroom at the restaurant she’s dining at, after nearly entering a stall occupied by a man, Jude (Adam Driver). As she frantically tries to leave the door gets jammed, locking them both in the claustrophobic bathroom together. To make matters worse, Jude has the stomach flu, making the smell nearly unbearable for them both. A call to the restaurant is their only way out of this hilariously awkward single take scene. In the face of a painfully awkward moment, the two seem oddly attracted to each other. While this opening scene has a charming vibe to it, Hungry Hearts quickly shifts into a romance but ultimately settles for something much darker, skirting the line between intense thriller and straight-up horror.

The film jumps ahead to show that they’re now a couple and, after a positive pregnancy test, they eventually decide to get married. Everything is peachy until the baby arrives. Which is when the tone shifts and laughs get replaced with shouting disagreements on how to properly raise their child. Mina doesn’t trust doctors and insists on keeping their newborn as “pure” as possible, meaning vegan diet only and no unnatural medicines like antibiotics. Jude realizes his son isn’t growing like he should so he sneaks his child to a doctor who tells him the baby suffers from malnourishment. This is when the film should get real interesting, but it turns into an exasperating watch instead.

Hungry Hearts starts and ends with a bang, but the lack of substance in between doesn’t match up to these hefty bookends. Both Rohrwacher and Driver recently received acting awards at the Venice Film Festival for their outstanding performances, but they aren’t enough to save the film from feeling like a missed opportunity.