The Spiral (L’Estranea) Review: Mommy Dearest!

Paolo Strippoli’s The Spiral cements his place as the rising Italian filmmaker to watch with this latest gory, psychological and moral labyrinth.

The Spiral opens on a tension-filled surprise reunion between Anna (Jasmine Trinca, of Supersex) and her daughter Alice (Romana Maggiora Vergano, of There’s Still Tomorrow). In the middle of a worsening storm, Anna arrives at her daughter’s apartment in Rome with a suitcase and a confession. Anna explains that she needs to tell Alice a truth about their family that she has long kept to herself, much to Alice’s confusion.

The film then takes us back to 1999, where the family has just moved into their new estate in Bari, Puglia. It’s a sprawling home, beautifully adorned with lush furniture and decorations, but the real beauty lies within the family who occupies it. Anna and her husband, Walter (Adriano Giannini), are a picture-perfect couple who, don’t know it yet, but are at the peak of their wealth and the climax of their relationship. Their 13-year-old son, Tobia (Alessandro Carbonara), is the envy of every parent at school. He is the star of the soccer team, effortlessly outgoing and beloved by everyone he meets. Additionally, their 7-year-old daughter Alice (Gabriella Telegrafo) is the ridiculously adorable apple of their eye. 

To celebrate their move, Walter and Anna throw an extravagant party where the entirety of their social circle appears to have arrived. Prior to the party starting, Anna receives a phone call that little Alice has booked a commercial with Barilla. Anna is ecstatic, knowing her daughter had great potential and feeling a sense of pride underlined by her dream of being an actress that Anna was never able to actualize herself. 

Later at the party, however, their picture-perfect family shatters when Alice is attacked by their family dog and rushed to the hospital. Anna, Walter and Tobia’s all-white outfits are covered in Alice’s blood as the doctors tell the family they may need to amputate Alice’s leg in order to save her life. Riddled with desperation, Anna finds the hospital’s chapel and begins to pray for her daughter. 

Suddenly, Anna is met by a Stranger (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, of Duse) whose presence offers her a strange sense of comfort and reprieve from this nightmare. After Anna tells the Stranger what has happened, she says she could make sure that Alice doesn’t need to receive an amputation, but Anna would need to promise to sacrifice some part of Tobia’s physicality as a way to repay her. Confused and not truly understanding what the Stranger is offering, Anna agrees out of desperation. When Alice soon makes a full recovery, Anna counts her blessings, but understands the deal she has made will need to be repaid one way or another. 

The Spiral is one of the most interestingly constructed and well-developed original films to come out of 2026. With it, Paolo Strippoli not only shows he deserves to be spoken about in the company of up-and-coming horror renaissance directors like Curry Barker (Obsession) and Kane Parsons (Backrooms), but that he is able to own a unique space that adds a particular sense of depth to the genre. 

At the center of The Spiral, we have a mother who has made a deal with the devil (we are never given clarity on if that is so to speak, or Strippoli’s literal intention for Bruni Tedeschi’s character), but on a grander scale, it’s an exploration of complex family dynamics, coming-of-age stories and most surprisingly, how far you can push dark comedies. 

Valeria Bruni Tedeschi as the Stranger is the definitive standout of the film. Her ability to disarm Anna in one moment and then have audiences laughing out loud in another is a testament to her versatility as an actress and a master of her craft. The scenes in which she and Jasmine Trinca spar head-to-head are the most memorable of this unforgettable film. 

Trinca perfectly encapsulates Anna’s equal parts love and equal parts vanity for which she makes each of her decisions. While she wants to save her daughter, there’s not a clear indication that it’s done without a thought being paid to what the amputation could do to her career as an actress. Strippoli sets up the story so that by the time she is confronted by this Faustian bargain, we know Anna well enough to know how much others’ perceptions of her as a family unit, mother and wife impact the ways in which she makes her decisions. 

In that sense, The Spiral is able to tackle questions of class, appearance and superficiality further emphasized by the gore of the film. Strippoli’s inclusion of intensive gore and plainly grotesque shots is made in an effort to emphasize that every terrible thing that happens to this family is a direct consequence of Anna’s attempts to control the uncontrollable for the sake of optics. It’s used as a tool for story development and enrichment rather than shock-factor, once again demonstrating the emergence of a truly great filmmaker. 

In The Spiral, Strippoli takes audiences into one family’s descent into ruins as they travel further and further along a road riddled with morally complex mazes and red herrings pointing to false exits. With pitch-perfect performances from the central cast, a sound design and score emphasizing the eerie atmosphere of the film’s psychological labyrinth and visuals that underline the unpredictability and volatility of the story, The Spiral proves to be one of the biggest surprises from the 2026 Venice Film Festival. 

The Spiral (L’Estranea) had its World Premiere at the 2026 Venice Film Festival on September 7, 2026.