The Right Distance on AllMovie

The title of Carlo Mazzacurati's tense and moody small-town drama La Giusta Distanza (AKA The Right Distance, 2007) refers to a writer's need to maintain an appropriate amount of professional "distance" from his or her subject; the journalist in question here is Giovanni (neophyte Giovanni Capovilla), a late adolescent with a flair for journalistic correspondence. As the story opens, Giovanni attaches himself to a big city paper and agrees to cover events that transpire in his Po River Valley hamlet. Meanwhile, the arrival in town of fetching teacher Mara (Valentina Lodovini) turns more than a few heads, including Giovanni's and that of Hassan, a local immigrant mechanic from Tunisia. Mara herself just happens to be single, but finds a dearth of acceptable suitors in the community, except for Guido, a bus driver; problem is, he's already romantically involved with another. Mara then finds Hassan spying through her window one night; she manages to overlook this, however, and then - on an ill-advised note - begins a romance with the mechanic, without recognizing the extent of what she's getting herself into.