L'Arminuta (2021)

A burgundy Alfetta with Pescara license plates pulls up at a country house. In the car are a red-haired girl and a man who will turn out to be her adoptive father and a distant relative. It becomes clear that the girl—the “Arminuta,” meaning “the one who has returned”—has been brought back to her birth family, whom she has never known. She is met with utter coldness, perhaps born of disorientation and ignorance, by her younger sister Adriana, her mother, and a little brother. The girl begs her father not to leave her in this house full of strangers, but he is unmoved. Later, she meets her biological father and her three other brothers, who behave much like the rest of the family. Her mother, however, seems troubled, though unable to show her affection. Despite the initial difficulties, the Arminuta begins to form a bond with her family, especially with her little sister Adriana. Her adoptive mother continues to look after her indirectly, for example by sending furniture and linens for the room she shares with her siblings. One day, her eldest brother Vincenzo takes her to the sea, indulging her wish to revisit the life she had before in the city of Pescara. On this occasion, Vincenzo kisses her while they are swimming, and it becomes clear that the boy has ambivalent feelings toward the newcomer: he sees her more as an object of desire than as a sister, while also behaving considerately and protectively, as if he, more than anyone else, senses how lost she feels. After a bitter confrontation with her biological mother, the family is shaken by Vincenzo’s accidental death in a motorcycle crash. His mother in particular sinks into grief and depression, but tries to pull herself together for her family. Meanwhile, the adoptive mother, Adalgisa, keeps in touch regularly by sending gifts and money. The Arminuta wonders where she is and suffers over it. At school, the Arminuta stands out for her abilities, and her teacher encourages her to enter a literary competition. She wins, earning a postal savings passbook as a prize. At this point, her father also shows his pride in his daughter, telling the mother that the money belongs exclusively to the girl. Still stricken with grief, her mother visits a folk healer to ease her suffering. The elderly woman tells her there is no cure for her affliction, but that her “returned” daughter will bring her great satisfaction. It is now settled that the Arminuta will attend the classical high school in Pescara, though she will not move back in with her parents. In a rather brutal but effective and direct way, she finally learns from her sister Adriana the real reason she is in this situation: her adoptive mother had a daughter some time ago with another man (it becomes clear that her husband, not she, was infertile), and evidently can no longer maintain a relationship with her adopted daughter because of her relationship with her new partner. In the end, the Arminuta goes to visit her adoptive mother, first alone and then accompanied by her little sister, with whom she has formed an increasingly close bond. At lunch at Adalgisa’s house, they meet her new partner, Guido, a cold, authoritarian man who even insists that the woman let the baby cry, claiming it is just a tantrum. It is little Adriana who, with complete naturalness, slips into the baby’s room and picks her up. After Guido brusquely reprimands her, Adriana explains that the baby was crying because her little hand was stuck between the bars of the crib. At that point, the Arminuta decides to leave. After gazing for a long time at her adoptive mother caring for the baby, she goes to the sea with Adriana, and together they dive into the water. In the end, it becomes clear that the protagonist has finally decided to distance herself from her former life and from her adoptive mother, toward whom she feels estrangement and distance.