Into every life comes a pivotal movie. Some work of cinema will, inevitably, make a nonchalant entrance, sweep you off your feet, mangle your emotions and warp your perspective on life and waltz along its merry way, leaving you bulldozed and gaping in its wake.

My sister was never the same after “Hotel Rwanda.” My mother? “Citizen Kane.” My undoing happened to be a story of totalitarianism and vengeance and conspiracy — a movie that trumps all others.

“V for Vendetta” was my _one_. It swept me up in its rebellious, adventuresome spirit and bewitched me with its enigmatic antihero, the eerily masked V.

Those familiar with director James McTeigue’s “V for Vendetta” will easily call to mind the pasty complexion, rosy cheeks, pointed chin and striking mustache/eyebrow combination of V’s trademark disguise.

It was this face, V’s face, that I recognized on the peripherals of a Halloween party this year. Though bass thud-thud-thudded around me, speakers pulsated and vampires, sprites and a sweaty werewolf wove past, the distinctive Guy Fawkes mask drew my focus and eliminated all distractions.

I started toward it. It loomed creepily above its black-clothed body for an instant before… DRAT! A parade of tall people. I came to an abrupt halt. When my field of vision cleared, the face had vanished.

I could not have known that, upon its innocent arrival in postbox number 66, “V for Vendetta” would dish out such a colossal helping of world-rockage. I wasn’t prepared to sympathize with its frightened slip of a heroine. I certainly did not anticipate falling in love with a masked revolutionary, yet there I was, chasing V’s trademark mask across the dance floor. What crazed fangirl had usurped my common sense?

Unfortunately, common sense is no defense against the _one_. Mine came upon me unawares — I opened my mailbox last spring and found the crimson Netflix envelope perched benignly atop an L.L. Bean catalog. Like its hero, the disc had arrived masked. When I unwrapped it and took in the title, I flew upstairs to watch it, figuring I would do homework later. I never did get to the homework.

For two hours and 20 minutes I sat in front of my laptop, entranced. The dystopian setting, the solitary and mysterious hero, the whirling knives and the troubled heroine took me in completely. Totalitarian Great Britain sucked me in and refused to spit me out again. I cried myself to sleep that night. The next morning I woke up with my laptop at the foot of my bed. What better way to spend a Saturday morning than watch the whole thing again? I did.

That afternoon I was forced by an impatient mother to return “V for Vendetta,” but this hardly curbed my budding obsession. I read the entire synopsis online as well as any plot analysis I could find. I read snippets of the graphic novel. My desktop and cellphone backgrounds became movie posters. Of course they were two _different_ movie posters — a healthy variety.

I assumed this was normal. I had only to force my friend Jillian watch it, to witness her dry eyes and full retention of muscular control, to know that I was in the minority. Not that she wasn’t entertained, but apparently not everyone who watches “V for Vendetta” develops a dangerous obsession.

For Jill, “V” clearly wasn’t the one. Hers will come for her someday, though. It will sneak up on her all unawares, leap onto her back and gnaw at her eyeballs.

I will receive a hysterical phone call. She will say something along the lines of: “I don’t know what to do! That wretched movie made a nonchalant entrance, swept me off my feet, mangled my emotions and warped my perspective on life and waltzed along its merry way, leaving me bulldozed and gaping in its wake!”

Of course, I will help sweep up the pieces. When the one comes along, that is all we can do.