Some of the plot is implausible, yet the core ideas resonate richly, and the characters' behaviour is psychologically intriguing.
Quiet Chaos (2009)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:34
Fresh:26
Rotten:8
Average Rating:6.3/10
Consensus: An understated and thoughtful insight into grief and despair, with a stellar turn from Nanni Moretti.
Runtime: 1 hr 45 mins
Genre: Foreign Films
US Box Office: $0
Synopsis: Nanni Moretti stars in and co-wrote this moving Italian drama about grief. Pietro (Moretti) has just lost his wife, and he is left alone with their young daughter (Blu Yoshimi). He promises the... Nanni Moretti stars in and co-wrote this moving Italian drama about grief. Pietro (Moretti) has just lost his wife, and he is left alone with their young daughter (Blu Yoshimi). He promises the girl that he will wait for her in the car when she returns to school for the first time, but then his temporary offer turns into habit. Now, Pietro spends his days in his car, watching the world around him and grieving in his own way. [More]
Starring: Nanni Moretti, Valeria Golino, Isabella Ferrari, Alessandro Gassman
Starring: Nanni Moretti, Valeria Golino, Isabella Ferrari, Alessandro Gassman, Hippolyte Girardot, Blu Yoshimi, Kasia Smutniak, Denis Podalydes, Charles Berling, Silvio Orlando
Director: Antonello Grimaldi
Director: Antonello Grimaldi
Screenwriter: Nanni Moretti, Laura Paolucci, Francesco Piccolo
Producer: Domenico Procacci, Alessandro Pesci
Composer: Paolo Buonvino
Studio: IFC Films
Reviews for Quiet Chaos
Touching and sentimental in equal measure, Quiet Chaos exhibits many traits that fans will recognise from Moretti's own films as director, such as Caro Diario (1993) and The Son's Room (2001).
A respectable and always watchable film about bereavement, well acted and well made.
It's subtle stuff with an appealing lack of contrivance and there is something very natural about its resolution.
It's like a psychological study, but performed with grace and humanity
Quiet Chaos is an apt description for the emotional state of Nanni Moretti's grieving widower Pietro, in a film whose central theme is grief, but that plays out with a mix of humour and acceptance
Moretti's imposing frame and presence form the heart of this unexpected tale about love, relationships and loss.
[Nanni] Moretti makes this 'study' in despair a naggingly neutral, at times borderline coy experience.
Moretti gives his usual excellent performance. But the script throws in too many other elements while it should be concentrating on the father-daughter relationship.
Quiet Chaos jerkily shifts tones, from oddly comic ... to blunt. And by blunt I mean an indiscreet, in-your-face sex scene that turns the viewer from observer to pervy voyeur.
The film, while uneven -- sometimes too on the nose, sometimes anecdotal and diffuse -- is generally absorbing, thanks mostly to the quality of the acting.
Unfortunately, Quiet Chaos can’t help but become heated, and a ridiculous climax sabotages much of the emotional weight.
Not even the momentary participation extraordinaire of a vertically challenged famous filmmaker self-exiled from the United States can save this phony pseudo-drama from its final collapse into a heap of inconsequence and male vanity.
Grimaldi’s sensitive direction, allied to a subtle score by Paolo Buonvino, sharp script and accomplished acting, helps to turn this into an original and complex study of the unpredictability of human foibles and weaknesses.
Quiet Chaos has strength and insight about the experiences that cause us to change direction in life.
Don’t expect anything too profound from this middleweight fare - but it’ll still be better than the inevitable remake.
A thoughtful portrait of the purgatory of grief that prefers small incidences and exchanges over grand gestures of sentiment and revelation. It’s sad – but never cloying.
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