The Holy Boy ★★ ½

If a place is called “The Valley of Smiles”—as the setting of Paolo Strippoli‘s quasi-religious horror tale is named by its Italian original title, which is so profoundly creepy that it’s incomprehensible why the English title didn’t simply translate it—then it’s best to stay as far away from it as possible. Not move there like the grief-stricken protagonist, seeking a calm and secluded refuge from a recent tragedy and maybe some consolation. The latter seems abundant in the little mountain community of Remis, where everyone is always serene and life seems constantly harmonious. Of course, there is a downside to this in the parabolic plot that ironically remains too reluctant to upset the comforting conceits of its audience.

Despite its frustrating avoidance of the timely themes of toxic positivity and idealized emotional apathy, there are still enough interesting ideas in the storyline, which is limited further by its own reactionary restrictions. The latter are most obvious in the reversal of any critique of the religious motifs omnipresent in the atmospheric Alpine location. Former judo champion and sports teacher Sergio Rossetti (Michele Riondino) comes to Remis hoping for personal renewal. All he needs is a hug, suggests his new friend Michela (Romana Maggiora Vergano), who gets this hug herself at regular intervals. In fact, the whole community of Remis does. Not just any hug, but one from 15-year-old Matteo (Giulio Feltri), who can ease people’s psychological suffering with hugging.

It might sound ludicrous, but one witnesses the solemn procedure where people line up like patients in a mental institution for their evening medication, waiting to be sedated from mental anguish. Under the authoritarian control of his father Mauro (Paolo Pierobon) and parish priest Don Attilio (Roberto Citran), the introverted teenager is forced to become a sponge for the community’s negative emotions. All the built-up anger, pain, and regrets are released as Sergio attempts to help Matteo free himself from his father’s rule. With his biblical name, the tragic antagonist is an embodiment of religious consolation, numbing his initially voluntary visitors—but only temporarily, so that they return for their next spiritual shot of solace.

This strictly rationed mental high prevents those who get it, like Sergio and Michela, from facing and working through their issues. However, the alternative the director and co-screenwriter presents frames struggling with psychological pain and seeking a form of support as weakness, especially in men. This reactionary concept of unflinching masculinity comes with a literal demonization of queerness. Matteo’s romantic feelings for a classmate culminate in him forcing the other boy to burn himself alive. It’s a gruesomely symbolic scene, reeking with homophobic paranoia and archaic prejudice. Initially criticized, the collective emotional parasitism suddenly appears as a necessary ritual to subdue the evil forces within Matteo.

Because there’s always room for an intolerant cherry on top, he is revealed to be an adopted child, because supposedly a God-fearing man like Mauro could never have a demonic offspring. Cristiano Di Nicola’s cinematography captures the Alpine panorama as looming ominously over the community, whose bright mood contrasts eerily with the cold light and bleak colors. Narrow spaces and dimly-lit interiors increase the suffocating atmosphere around the young antagonist, to whom Feltri’s gentle performance gives a childlike vulnerability. Single acts of violence erupt into the tense stillness, creating an aura of spiritual stupor. Hiding its patriarchal values and clerical dogma behind uncanny mood and complex themes, the ambivalent mix of occult horror and psychological allegory becomes a cinematic equivalent of its premise.