by Jake Hjort, Contributing Writer
When it comes to picking out movies for date night, my wife and I love to try and seek out underseen romcoms and romantic films that we’ve never heard of before. Without any burden of expectations, it can often be easier to give into the film and to find a relationship that you can invest in, or jokes that you can laugh at. We’ve certainly watched plenty of stinkers that we can roast along the way, but every now and then we stumble upon a real diamond in the rough like Rye Lane. The Tearsmith, the latest addition to our date night list, unfortunately falls more on the stinker side of the spectrum.
The Tearsmith, an Italian film from director Alessandro Genovesi, tells the story of Nica (Caterina Ferioli), a teenage girl who was orphaned as a child when her parents died in a car crash, leading to her growing up in an orphanage known as “Grave” under the cruel hand of headmistress Ms. Margaret (Sabrina Paravicini). Early in the film, Nica is adopted, along with another orphan named Rigel (Simone Baldasseroni), a boy who was the only orphan spared from Ms. Margaret’s abuse and oftentimes partook in her torment of others. Now, living with their new parents and soon to officially become brothers and sisters, Nica and Rigel must confront their traumatic upbringings and learn to find their new places in the world.
The Tearsmith is, without a doubt, one of the most melodramatic films that I’ve ever watched. If I were to have walked into the room when it was playing without any context, I would have assumed that it was an Italian translation of some campy CW teen drama like Riverdale. The actors always seem as though they’re living within intense, emotional extremes, inhabiting deep pits of sorrows and high cliffs of euphoria. Conversations don’t feel like organic back-and-forths between characters, but more like brooding soliloquies performed at one another, permeated by pensive narration and Olivia Rodrigo needle drops. The plot is all over the place as well, chaotically mixing themes of trauma, abuse, and grief, a metaphor for how fairy tales play out in real life, elements of a legal drama, and all the tropes of a typical teen romance film into one messy product.
Alright, well there’s no point in burying the lede any further, so let’s get to the relationship at the center of the film: that between Nica and Rigel. No, not their relationship as fellow orphans at Grave or as siblings in their new adopted family, but the romantic and sexual relationship that neither can resist. Now, this isn’t something that’s implied or subtextual; it is the center of this very horny teen drama film. Despite that fact that both profess their disdain for the other at any given opportunity at the beginning of the film, it’s just as soon that their faces are inches from one another, moments away from a first, forbidden kiss, or that Nica strokes a feverish Rigel’s muscles as she cares for him while their parents are away.
Now, I know this technically isn’t incest, as neither are related by blood and they weren’t raised to see each other as siblings in the orphanage, but that doesn’t really make any of it feel any less wrong. The two are consistently referred to as brother and sister throughout the film and there are several references to the taboo nature of their dalliance. Further, this budding relationship isn’t just uncomfortable to watch because of the objectionable connection between its participants, but also because of the strong tonal disparity between it and the rest of the film. Scenes depicting child abuse or sexual assault are quickly followed with steamy, romantic meetups, creating a sense of whiplash and queasiness.
The Tearsmith is a car crash: You feel bad watching it, but you can’t quite look away. It is by almost all accounts a poorly made film: The acting is unnatural, the script is terrible, and the direction is uninspired, but at the same time I was never bored once. I can confidently say that I didn’t like it, but I cannot say that I didn’t enjoy it, which I guess is more than can be said about a lot of other dull, lifeless films.
Rating: Didn’t Like It
The Tearsmith is currently streaming on Netflix
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