Welcome Home *** (2018, Emily Ratajkowski, Aaron Paul, Riccardo Scamarcio) – Movie Review

A quarrelling, unfaithful couple on holiday to try to make their relationship all right again, a mysterious creepy stranger, a thriller set in the Italian countryside. What’s not to like?

Self-satisfied, duck out of water Americans Cassie and Bryan (Emily Ratajkowski, Aaron Paul) pick a gorgeous Italian rental house off the internet, and arrive by car at their dream vacation home, narrowly escaping arriving at a tumbled-down nearby home that turns out to belong to the mysterious creepy stranger, who swiftly turns up and starts turning on the charm, but then being gently, very gently menacing. He seems to be targeting the lovely, sexy heroine, and of course the easily riled Bryan is not at all pleased at creepy stranger Federico’s attentions to Cassie.

[Spoiler alert] Riccardo Scamarcio kind of has the film’s best role, as Federico, but he does it just great, going from slightly creepy to gently menacing to very menacing in easy stages. Who is Federico anyway? The couple at first think he is really the homeowner, but eventually he turns up too – Eduardo (Francesco Acquaroli) and he also seems to have sinister plans.

Of course, Welcome Home is terribly racist, the usual nonsense about Americans being threatened by awful foreigners as soon as they leave their wonderful land, and the usual nonsense about smooth and smarmy Italians who are actually really degenerate predators. But, who cares? It’s only a movie, Ingrid, and Hitchcock might have liked it, though, if he had made it, it would be a little better.

All it really needs are a couple of extra mysteries, maybe a couple of extra characters, and three or four really strong scenes at the climax (it would easily take an extra 10 minutes), and it could be in the Hitchcock class. As it is, it’s good, very acceptable thriller entertainment. It is likeable and enjoyable. Emily Ratajkowski and Aaron Paul both well used, though it is still Riccardo Scamarcio’s movie. And naturally vacation rental home in the Italian countryside is a bit of a star too.

In case you want to book a visit to Italy, the film’s main home and town are located in Todi, Umbria. But perhaps you would be safer booking a visit to Florence.

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Two movies on similar lines come to mind: Dead Calm and The Comfort of Strangers, both with the themes of a troubled couple taking a recuperative vacation and finding themselves threatened by a creepy stranger, the second also set in Italy.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Movie Review

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