Netflix Emotional Drama Gives A New Take On Self-Help

I took a chance on Stromboli for my usual Saturday night film. I sent my kids and husband off to bed and pulled up this Dutch drama that Netflix had recommended for me based on other films I’d watched. To be clear, despite the film being Dutch and filmed in Italy, it is almost entirely in English.

There are a few Dutch phrases interspersed throughout, some translated, some not. Otherwise, everyone speaks English.

Stromboli opens on a boat traveling to the Italian volcanic island of Stromboli. We meet Sara (Elise Schaap), who’s clearly drunk, wandering around the boat, tipping this way and that. She heads to the bar and orders an espresso and a grappa, flirts with the bartender, and immediately heads to the kitchen to have a romantic fling with him.

She stumbles off the boat onto the island, is greeted by an elderly man and his donkey, who take her to a cute little cottage on the sea that she has apparently stayed in before, with her now ex-husband. She drinks herself to sleep. 

The next day, Sara heads into the village of Stromboli for more alcohol and falls asleep on the beach. She awakens to an older man stumbling around on the beach, and she invites him to sit down. Harold (Tim McInnerny), it turns out, is on a retreat on the island, and he’s taking the day to himself.

Sara and Harold have drinks, and Sara loses her bag. Harold goes off in his own direction, back to the retreat, and Sara again stumbles home, breaks a window to get into the cottage, starts a fire while trying to drunkenly make pasta, and falls asleep amidst the wreckage.

Of course, her landlord arrives at this mess and summarily kicks her out. Now Sara finds herself in Stromboli with no money, no phone, and no one to help her. She wanders the village feeling sorry for herself before tripping upon a chapel, which she enters only to fall asleep on a pew.

It is here that the movie really starts. This first 20 to 30 minutes are just to show us what a mess Sara is, and we don’t really know why. 

Sara opens her eyes, lying there on the pew in Stromboli, and finds the leader of Harold’s retreat, Jens (Christian Hillborg) looking down at her with compassion. He invites her to join the retreat, offering her sanctuary, food, water, and nonjudgmental space. It is in this lovely space that Sara begins to confront her troubles, as she is in a battle with her teenage daughter over an incident at the young girl’s birthday party, and her ex-husband is providing refuge for their daughter. 

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We meet the other members of the retreat, each with their own trauma, and the rest of the film centers around Sara dealing with having been assaulted as a teenager, a violent experience she has never gotten past, which has colored every other aspect of her life since. Stromboli approaches the healing process for Sara in stark images and with questionable therapeutic strategies, but as a viewer, you can’t help but watch, riveted, until the end.

I kept waiting for an M. Night Shyamalan twist that never arrived. In any event, it’s a movie worth watching, and at just under an hour and a half, it’s easy to get through. You can stream Stromboli on Netflix next time you’re up for a slightly weird foreign film.