Director: Paolo Strippoli
Year: 2026
Country: Italy/Slovenia
Alternate Titles: La valle dei sorrisi; The Village of Smiles
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Arriving in a remote mountain village, a man hired to be a new substitute teacher for the town finds that the locals have developed a fanatical obsession with a strange kid in town that seems to have paranormal powers, and the more he stays there uncovers the dark secret about the residents.
Review:
For the most part, this was a fairly solid if troublesome genre effort. Among the better factors within this one comes from the immensely effective and likable setup that provides this with the kind of stylish approach that fits within this kind of storyline. The whole idea about the arrival at the town to take over the judo class at the school and being slowly introduced to the series of events that are in place, from the different meetings and discussions in place about how the operations take place, provides a fantastic starting point for this kind of film. Knowing that there’s a special order to how they interact with each other, with everyone partaking in keeping this bizarre secret and ensuring that everything is allowed to continue as normal for the rest of the town all manages to provide the kind of engrossing small-town mystery that works quite well here.
By the time this graduates into the full-on reveal about the kind of devout adoration of the kid and their special relationship with him, where they have to go through a series of affectionate displays and get what’s coming as a result, this turns into a generally fun turn where the desire to make sure those in charge can try to stay in power by controlling his powers while everyone else is desperate for their own taste against his wishes. The idea about him trying to come to terms with his powers and just live his life how he wants, despite the onslaught of others wanting to get their own taste of his powers, so it all comes across as a series of impressive sequences where the devolution takes on a more overtly violent tone. The amount of time it spends on the finale featuring all sorts of brutal reactions and counterpoints to everything makes everything into a fun direction, all of which makes for a lot to like here.
There are a few drawbacks present that bring this one down. The most pressing issue with this one is the overly complicated and bloated sense of the town where it features way too many characters with their different motivations for being there in the town that it keeps everything way too rushed when it doesn’t need to be, with way too many instances involving the different background characters trying to work around the outskirts of the story dragging the pace out considerably. The fact that all of them are brought in and are trying to give this a spot in the running time to understand the significance of the kid to them, which works fine in the first few instances, but soon becomes overkill when far too many characters are brought in and introduced, which cramps the running time. This could’ve either dropped a couple of characters or expanded this into a full-on series that allows this to be explored a little more, as this handles the other issue with the overlong running time taking way too much time here, but otherwise, there’s nothing else wrong here holding this down.
Overview: ***/5
An enjoyable if overlong genre effort, this one offers up the kind of likable storyline that it could’ve had a lot more positives just by fixing one area that ends up holding it back. Those with an appreciation for this style who are curious about it will have the most to like here, while most others out there might want to heed caution.
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