Stars: Nanni Moretti, Laura Morante, Jasmine Trinca, Silvio Orlando, Stefano Accorsi, Claudi Della Seta, Guiseppe Sanfelice, Sofia Vigliar

Director: Nanni Moretti

Summary: A family struggles to face the future after a tragic accident. Italian dialogue.

Nanni Moretti's extraordinary drama THE SON'S ROOM, which won the Palme D'Or at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, tells the harrowing story of a once tight-knit, happy family having to come to terms with a devastating loss and get on with their lives. Nanni Moretti, the writer-director of the charming CARO DIARIO, which was based on his own life, has created this piece of fiction from scratch, but he nails it so well it is hard to believe it is not a documentary. Moretti, who not only stars in and directs the film but is also cowriter and coproducer, plays Giovanni, a happily married man with two wonderful children; he is also a psychoanalyst with a group of patients both hysterical and sad. He enjoys running through the streets of Ancona, but when he opts to make a rare house call one Sunday morning instead of going for a run with his son, tragedy strikes, and he can't help blaming himself and his choices. He starts having trouble listening to and caring about his patients, and he also distances himself from his wife, played magnificently by Laura Morante. One of the underlying themes of the film is the need to make--and break--scheduled appointments that threaten to overtake one's life with its potential for compulsive obsession; as Giovanni dreams of past scenes playing out differently, he can't help but think that if he had rearranged his schedule based on the importance and necessity of his appointments, his idyllic world might not have been turned upside down.

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The Son's Room, which picked up the 2001 Palme d'Or at Cannes, marks a departure for writer-director Nanni Moretti. The films that made his name outside Italy, Dear Diaryand Aprile, were both highly personal and politicised semi-documentaries, and a strong political sense underlies the half-dozen or so features he made before them. By contrast, The Son's Roomis a subtle, intense study of a family cracking apart under the impact of grief, with no overt political element. For all that, it's the most moving film that Moretti's yet made. "It captured me" he says "more than any other [story] I'd worked on previously. It's a film in which the director shares his emotions with the audience, without imposing his own feelings."

As usual, the director plays his own lead character. Here he's Giovanni, a successful psychiatrist in a provincial Italian city (Ancona on the Adriatic coast). He has a beautiful wife, happy in her own career, and two bright, good-looking teenage children, a son and a daughter. Then, out of nowhere, tragedy strikes and in its aftermath, the fissures begin to show in the idyllic façade. Giovanni in particular reveals the insecurities and neuroses lurking behind his tolerant, easy-going demeanour. Moretti homes in on his characters with clear-eyed compassion, never milking the tragedy for facile sentiment but sparing us nothing of the gut-wrenching grief they feel. Nor does he succumb to the temptation of a feel-good happy ending: we are left with a hint of hope for the future, but no more. This is intelligent, mature filmmaking that respects its audience.

On the DVD:The Son's Roomcomes to disc with just the trailer--and the flabby US trailer at that. A commentary from Moretti would have been more than welcome. Still, the transfer, in the original 1.66:1 ratio, is impeccable, with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound to match. --Philip Kemp

Main Language:	Italian
Region:	Region 2
Subtitles:	English
Year:	2001
Release Date:	January 27, 2003
Runtime:	100 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	M P 198 D
Keywords:	Subtitled, Room, General, Italian, Drama, Son's
Genre:	Drama