La sconosciuta 2006

Amy Nicholson, Boxoffice Magazine: Postures as empathetic while getting its leading lady out of her skivvies -- there's nothing bold about taking a stance against human trafficking Read more

Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader: The melodrama form allows Tornatore to examine such current issues as human trafficking and black-market babies within a yarn that, for all its sentiment, is never less than gripping. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Tornatore, best known for Cinema Paradiso, has meticulously crafted a story that's at times so raw it hurts to watch. Its action blends piercingly lit flashbacks and dream sequences with a gray, prosaic present in an unnamed Italian city. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Plays like a cross between Hitchcock and tabloid feminism, a mix that shouldn't work and doesn't. Read more

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: Everyday incidents trigger in Irena alternately sweet and horrific memories, and these become like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle that is completed only when the film concludes, at last revealing its full meaning. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: An unstable concoction of political melodrama, film noir, and weepie. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: [A] baroquely lurid and undeniably fascinating exercise in pulp with a political angle. Read more

Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly: Meet the filmmaker that [Tornatore] is today -- sadomasochistic fantasist, exploiter of women and cheesy Hitchcock imitator. Read more

V.A. Musetto, New York Post: It gets more and more ridiculous and unbelievable as it goes along, and the final scene is shamelessly manipulative. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: A spellbinder with a lot of Hitchcock touches and an Ennio Morricone score to match. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: An exceptionally well-made example of the kind of delirious, semi-Gothic, overcooked melodrama filmmakers from the Boot have long specialized in. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: The whole movie hangs on the gradual unraveling of the central mystery and is made with the expectation that the audience is fascinated and hanging on every tidbit. But Tornatore overplays his hand. Read more

Kamal Al-Solaylee, Globe and Mail: This is a case where style has not only trumped substance, but negated it as well. Read more

Susan Walker, Toronto Star: Rappoport is the movie's saving grace. Read more

David Fear, Time Out: Read more

Deborah Young, Variety: The film has major problems blending the strong social theme of exploitation and white slavery with Tornatore's noirish screenplay, full of holes and improbabilities. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: The Unknown Woman falters when it falls into exploitation and fatal contrivance. Read more