The Son’s Room
Screening: 15 February 2003 (supper
evening)
Best film - 56th season
Italy/France 2001 (subtitles)
99 minutes
Directed by Nanni Moretti
Leading players - Nanni Moretti, Laura Morante, Jasmine Trinca.
Synopsis
Successful psychoanalyst, Giovanni, has the perfect, contented, bourgeois family; beautiful wife Paola and two well-adjusted teenage children Irene and Andrea. In an attempt at bonding with his son Andrea, Giovanni organises to go jogging with him. But when a patient calls, he cancels the activity, a decision he will come to play over and over in his mind as Andrea goes scuba-diving with friends instead and never returns.How does a man used to dealing with the emotional problems of others deal with his own?
The family begin to psychologically unravel with grief until a former girlfriend of Andrea's turns up unexpectedly and only through the arrival of this stranger do they finally come to terms with their son's death.
* * * * * *
Nanni Moretti's powerful and beautifully observed melodrama was the deserved winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes last year. A complete change of direction for the man more commonly associated with comedies such as Dear Diary and Aprile, the film was compared unfavourably by American critics to the oscar-nominated In the Bedroom which covers similar territory. But Moretti's acute observations and a raft of good performances make this ultimately uplifting film one to savour.
