The Son's Room, possesses a quiet, haunting realism, fueled by an excellent script and assured performances all around.
The Son's Room (2002)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:81
Fresh:68
Rotten:13
Average Rating:7.3/10
Consensus: The Son's Room is a moving and contemplative study of grief.
Synopsis: 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... 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. [More]
Starring: Nanni Moretti, Jasmine Trinca, Guiseppe Sanfelice, Silvio Orlando
Starring: Nanni Moretti, Jasmine Trinca, Guiseppe Sanfelice, Silvio Orlando, Claudi Della Seta, Stefano Accorsi, Sofia Vigliar, Laura Morante
Director: Nanni Moretti
Director: Nanni Moretti
Screenwriter: Linda Ferri, Nanni Moretti, Heidrun Schleef
Producer: Angelo Barbagallo, Nanni Moretti
Composer: Nicola Piovani
Studio: Miramax Films
Reviews for The Son's Room
The drama is played out with such aching beauty and truth that it brings tears to your eyes.
What's refreshing about this otherwise standard-issue story is its refusal to demand your empathy.
Delicately distinctive; it's the kind of picture that stirs subterranean rumbles of empathy in us rather than flashy, gushing waves.
Moretti ... is the rare common-man artist who's wise enough to recognize that there are few things in this world more complex -- and, as it turns out, more fragile -- than happiness.
It is in Moretti's nature to never be completely gloomy. Yet in striving for greater seriousness, he has proven himself capable of far more meaningful work that the comedian in him has ever before demonstrated, or admitted to.
A moving and weighty depiction of one family's attempts to heal after the death of a child.
Benefiting from Nicola Pavani's poignant scoring and the telling understatement of Giuseppe Lanci's cinematography, it's a lovely work, nonetheless, a welcome creative departure for a gifted Italian artist.
Despite pitch-perfect performances, the craft of Moretti's direction and his honorable intentions, The Son's Room was not especially moving.
while the topic has grown heavier here, [Moretti's] touch has not, and that disparity is precisely what gives the film its sustained poignancy.
Instead of building character, [The Son's Room] makes its points serially and plays like the outline of a B minus term paper in which the assigned subject is Kubler-Ross.
The film’s masterstroke is in balancing the family’s grief with the reflective, unceremonious gaze of an outsider.
A movie more to be prescribed than recommended -- as visually bland as a dentist's waiting room, complete with soothing Muzak and a cushion of predictable narrative rhythms.
The feelings it expresses hold an undeniable sense of truth and are therefore not easily dismissed.
Stands as a gentle reminder that while loss is inevitable, it need not be ruinous.
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