Nothing is quite what it initially seems in this twisty Italian thriller, the auspicious debut feature by Giuseppe Capotondi, a longtime photographer for magazines such as Vanity Fair and director of music videos for the Spice Girls and others.

The magnetic Kseniya Rappoport plays an Italian-Slovenian chambermaid at a Turin hotel who meets Guido (Filippo Timi, Mussolini in “Vincere”), a former cop, at a speed-dating event where he’s a regular.

Soon they’re canoodling at a mansion where he’s a security guard. They’re interrupted by the arrival of thieves who kill him and injure our heroine, who falls under the suspicion of the police. Or so it seems.

“The Double Hour,” whose title refers to those points when the hours and minutes on the clock match (such as 11:11), doesn’t always deliver on its twists. But it works well enough that an American remake is in the works.