Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Security’ on Netflix, Where Cams Catch The Bad Behavior A Town Won’t Admit

Despite its forgettable title, Security (Netflix) proves to be a tightly-constructed drama about the secrets people keep, and how the guy that wired the whole town to keep interlopers outside ends up learning too much about what goes on inside. In this picaresque Italian resort town, the obscene behavior is coming from inside the house.

SECURITY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Forte dei Marmi is a pleasant seaside resort town in Northern Italy where cabanas dot the beach along the Tyrrhenian Sea and statuary decorates piazzas as the deep azure crags of the Apuan Alps overlook it all. It’s postcard perfect, and in voiceover, that’s exactly how Roberto (Marco D’Amore) describes it — just like a postcard, Forte dei Marmi is posed, and is in reality much more messy than its groomed beaches and pristine plazas would have you believe. Roberto is a security expert, and his extensive camera and alarm systems protect many of the gated villas that line the town’s main drag. “It’s like an invasion — you can’t be too careful,” one of his moneyed clients says, asking Roberto to check on their home. But Roberto knows that trouble takes many forms, and is not simply a function of rising immigration rates.

One night, a young woman and classmate of Roberto’s high school-aged daughter Angela is assaulted. The Carabinieri finger Maria’s alcoholic father for the crime — he’s been violent before, and lives with the shame of his assault charge for exposing himself to Angela when she was just seven. Roberto’s wife Claudia (Maya Sensa), meanwhile, is running for mayor of Forte dei Marmi, and her ambition blinds her to the prurience that lives just below the town’s idyllic surface. Roberto’s security cameras reveal a larger story surrounding Maria’s assault, with more people involved. People like Curzio Pilati (Fabrizio Bentivoglio), a billionaire and one of Claudia’s most important campaign donors. Not only that, but Maria and Angela’s creative writing professor, the suave boho Stefano (Silvio Muccino), is mixed up in the assault, too. Stefano’s got an alibi, but it’s problematic — he’s been making a habit of sleeping with his students, Angela included.

All of this inside knowledge weighs on Roberto. He has the proof, but not the power to act. There’s also the optics of Claudia’s mayoral campaign to consider, and the trust his rich, powerful clients have put in him to be discreet. Roberto’s also an incurable insomniac, and the occasional hallucination isn’t helping him sort out what went down the night of Maria’s assault. As his marriage falls apart, and the secrets Forte is keeping get harder and harder to tamp down, Roberto finds he’s become a lonely outsider with the inside scoop, and fewer and fewer friendly faces to turn to.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? While it’s more stylishly directed and enjoys a bigger budget, there’s a strain of Lifetime Movie DNA running through Security, films like Secrets in a Small Town, or Love Sick: Secrets of a Sex Addict. And don’t forget about Elite, the terrific Spanish series on Netflix concerning the shady doings and salacious romps of rich people in the orbit of an exclusive private school.

Performance Worth Watching: As a sort of Italian-language James McAvoy, Silvio Muccino plays the dreamboat writing professor with the out-of-control libido with aplomb. He’s all band-collared shirts, running his fingers meaningfully through his long hair as he smokes a cigarette in the classroom.

Memorable Dialogue: “Don’t make that face,” Claudia tells Roberto angrily. “That judging-my-ambition face. This is my only chance. This is my life, and I won’t let you get in the way, not you, not our marriage. Is that clear?” This lady really wants to be mayor.

Sex and Skin: From Stefano’s trysts with Angela, to the late-night bacchanals and hanky-panky happening behind closed doors in the courtyards of the well-heeled, Security certainly has its share of sex and skin.

Our Take: The clip from Claudia’s latest campaign ad spot lays out the biggest issue she’s running on. “In a world under threat, a vote for me is a vote for a safer future!” Claudia, like her moneyed donors, sees “undesirables” as a threat to the idyll they’ve built Forte dei Marmi into — in the shadows of the quiet offseason streets, immigrants lurk; everyone has learned to lock their doors. But what none of these gatekeepers are willing to notice is how poisonous and dangerous their little world is inside the walls, and under the veneer of exclusive cocktail parties and assured smiles at ribbon-cutting ceremonies. It’s much easier to place blame at the feet of a nameless foreign threat than admit that the damage is much closer to home. For a security expert like Roberto, he’s as much a custodian of dark secrets as he is a protector of goods and property. And Security sets up this narrative thread with a deft touch, never portraying outright racism, but instead letting these characters incriminate themselves with the power of euphemism and selective speech.

As it circles around its suspects and draws out their stories and excuses, Security loses sight a little of the man in the middle and his deteriorating constitution. Roberto’s recurring bouts with hallucinations are intriguing, and presented like painful sparks shooting between memories and dreams. But we don’t see enough of that, and while Marco D’Amore plays Roberto in an understated, likeable way, it might have been more interesting to see him become truly unhinged as the little resort town’s indecent behaviors are steadily revealed.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Directed with a sure hand and offering more than a few notes of sleaze and mystery, Security is an interesting look at how people harbor their real truths in the modern age of surveillance.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges

Watch Security on Netflix