On Demand Weekly

By Cynthia Kane

 

You might have the urge to turn off ALBAKIARA after the first 15 minutes. But stick with it. It all comes together. Or it doesn’t exactly, but in the end, it will stay with you. I watched it twice. It grew on me more than I expected.

The story follows Italian teenager Chiara, nicknamed Albakiara after a literary character whose angelic looks and character make her the ideal girl and daughter. This Albakiara looks the part, but while a lot more innocent than she’d like to admit, is a hard partying, fun-loving, little-studying teen.

 

Little does she know that her uncle’s grocery storeroom is harboring all kinds of merchandise for the local crooked cops with links to a Mafia boss we never meet called “K”. After storing stolen kilos of the purest cocaine, her uncle and two of his cohorts die in a horrific car accident, Chiara stumbles on the loot and happily shares with the school janitor and boyfriend and plan to become rich. She never questions the what, why or how it got there.

The talented cast is knock-out beautiful: Laura Gigante is Chiara playing her with equal conviction of naïveté and naughtiness. Raz Degan is the bad cop, Detective Castri who may look familiar. In real life, Degan’s an Israeli-American, former male super model, now a big, big star in Italy. He’s been seen in some U.S. films such as ALEXANDER and TITUS. But really surprising is that he’s a compelling and very good actor – probably the best performance here.