User reviews

I read almost all the reviews, before watching the film. I was impressed by the contradictive opinions. Some 1500 users (approx. 10%) rated it from 5 to 1. Personally, I was fascinated by the film. On the other hand I will never blame anyone who disliked it. I just try to understand why someone rejects what I like and that's why I read the "negative" reviews twice, trying (like Giovanni) to analyze reviewers' characters. Certainly this is not a film for Hollywood/Marvel fans. European cinema deals mostly with real people in real life incidents and stories. Therefore they apply to completely different audiences than the above mentioned fans. So, for European mentalities the film is very good, believe me!

It takes a certain amount of cheek to write, direct and star in your own films and Nanni Moretti's earlier work, 'Carao Diaro', was certainly eccentric, as he played himself as an annoying and socially limited loner. In 'The Son's Room', he proves he can act a role, in a more orthodox portrait of a family struggling to come to terms with the death of their son. The portrait of inter-generational relationships seems over-idealised (and how many teenagers are into Brian Eno?), but the real strength of this film is its sense of inicidentality. Instead of playing as straight melodrama, we see the family trying to continue with their lives, and in particular Moretti's character, a psychotherapist, interacting with his patients. The importance attached to the chance juxtaposition of events is reminiscent of Kieslowski, as is some of the dialogue: stylised but profound, even (or even because) its relationship to the main events is oblique: the whole carries meaning precisely because the individual parts are not overloaded, everything is potentially symbolic but nothing is forced. At the end of the day you believe in these characters; as a result, their tragedy rings with truth.

I watched this film several years before on TV, but interrupted and left unfinished, this time finally watched in the Febiofest's special program of Nanni Moretti's canon.

The general thoughts after watching it in the cinema is that this Cannes' Palme d'Or winner is lagging behind its award-winning prestige, during the whole process, it is difficult to single out any extraordinariness from it, which baffles me so much. The narrative is rather mediocre, any anticipated set piece are orchestrated in a mannered template, leaves a mawkish and maudlin impression of ennui (Brian Ono's BY THE RIVER is overtly pretentious here). The pain of losing one's dearest is a torment could slowly erode one's soul and drop in from time to time, which has nothing unexpectedly thrilling or soothing from the film's exposition.

If Moretti could be ranked as the Italian equivalence of Woody Allen, I divine the chief enjoyment should spring from its script and dialogue, in this case it is just as barren and conventional like as other tacky family tearjerkers, in spite of a hotchpotch of various patients of the psychiatrist adds up some emotional bite while being not too sharp-wittedly different from other generic shrink clichés. Compared with QUIET CHAOS (2008), another bereavement drama starring Moretti under the helm of Antonello Grimaldi, which fetches a 7/10, THE SON'S ROOM is a torrent of tepid water, the warmth it heats up is not as unaffected as I had expected.

The whole cast did a good job but nothing attracts any special attention, while Laura Morante's tearless grief of losing her only son is over-stagy, ironically Moretti is a much more natural actor by comparison, after all, the film does not deserve his overstated cachet, nor does Nanni Moretti.

[s p o i l e r s ]

"The Son's Room" ("La stanza del figlio"), in a way, is really two stories.

The first, rather humorous one, more typical of director/writer/star Nanni Moretti's previous work, concerns a somewhat ineffectual Italian psychiatrist, played by Moretti himself. `Italian' and `psychiatrist' sounds like a funny combination to start with. Giovanni, the analyst (Moretti) has a passive Freudian professional persona that sets him up for criticism and even abuse by his egocentric patients. This gently satirical situation underlines the idleness of middleclass people enmeshed in their mostly self-created `problems.' The second story is the much sadder one of how the psychiatrist's little family (Giovanni; Laura Morante as Paula, his wife; and Jasmine Trinca as Irene, their daughter) lose their beautiful young son and brother Andrea (Giuseppe Sanfelice, of Gabriele Muccino's "Io come te nessuno mai") in a tragic accident, and must come to terms with their irreparable loss. Both stories are sketched in briefly, the family idealized, the patients' personalities reduced to types. What surprises is that Moretti's movie achieves real emotional authenticity precisely because if its light Italian touch.

The two threads intertwine when Andrea's sudden death leads Moretti's character to realize his psychiatric work is pointless. He quits, at least temporarily, and some of his patients' reactions are not what we'd expect. We don't know if he'll go back or not. His wife falls apart too, husband and wife stop sleeping together, and their daughter is so sad and angry she gets herself suspended from her high school basketball team, of which she's a star, breaks up with her boyfriend, and says she doesn't miss him a bit. Giovanni is plagued by guilt because he went off in a car to see a far-flung patient in need instead of jogging with Andrea as originally planned and thus preventing him from going diving with his friends. He keeps having flashbacks to what might have been, blaming himself, the diving equipment, and the patient. A metaphor from the priest at the funeral that's meant to be comforting enrages him.

Eventually a chance event turns things around. Paola opens a letter to Andrea from a girl called Arianna (Sofia Vigliar) who met him briefly in the summer and fell in love. She calls the girl and tells her what has happened. Arianna drops by with another boy waiting below who's about to hitchhike to France with her. They take the two youths to the border. Somehow this trip leads the family to emerge from their grief and take a few timid, hopeful steps toward a return to living.

What makes "The Son's Room" emotionally convincing is the unmanipulative way Andrea's death is handled. It's completely sudden and unexpected. Nothing is done to pump up the tragedy. The boy had flaws. He has admitted he was involved in a theft at school - but it was only done as a prank. He lacks the will to win at tennis and `loses on purpose' in a game the family and Sandro, the sister's boyfriend, are present to watch. But these minor flaws only underline what a nice, handsome, likeable young guy he is and help us to feel the survivors' grief with them. Above all the actor playing Andrea simply seems happy. The style itself is the simplest: none of the sweeping camera pans, flowing music, or squealing "telefonini" of Gabriele Muccino or other contemporary Italian directors.

They grieve briefly and intensely. The scene where they take last looks and plant last kisses on Andrea's body before the coffin is soldered and nailed shut is heart-wrenching and as sudden, mysterious and traumatic as his drowning. The parents and the daughter return to their lives but it's too soon. They aren't ready; they haven't had enough time. Such a death doesn't provide any preparation for the process of grieving. They're left shattered and angry and they go through a period of bitterness and rebellion. It's not denial, because they have responded immediately to the loss of Andrea with tears and crying. But it's obvious that Giovanni is obsessively trying to replay the events in his mind. The rebellion has to play itself out for some time, and this is what we see beginning to end. The movie doesn't say what will happen in the future. It only shows that the family has tentatively begun to live again.

What's authentic and good about this little movie is that nothing is overdrawn. Italian restraint prevails. Everyone has been depicted as `normal,' typical, and presentable (qualities Italians are more comfortable with than Americans may be); but no one is glamorized or falsified. Nothing is done to `tweak' the tragedy, to make it heavy with foreshadowing or pumped up with excessive details or `excitement' or supporting actors. The utter simplicity of the production allows the tragedy to speak for itself simply and powerfully.

As a psychiatrist Moretti seems a bit buffoonish (as he does in his earlier diaristic films), his patients a tad overdrawn, particularly a sex fiend portrayed by "Last Kiss" star Stefano Accorsi. But they'd be tedious otherwise and would detract from the main action. One wonders why Andrea isn't given a few more evident accomplishments aside from looking pretty and being sweet. But the point here is valid: that a teenager is unformed, and teenage boys are inarticulate and therefore mysterious. The excellent Laura Morante does splendid work here as the grieving mother. Jasmine Trinca as the sister, like the others, is appealing and real.

Altogether this is Moretti's most emotionally powerful movie and one of his most successful. He yields his former efforts to be conceptual and clever in favor of authenticity and universality and the gamble succeeds.

As a person who myself lost a sibling in a tragic childhood accident, I find it hard to understand those who scoff at this movie, which feels sincere and true to me. Consider this prejudice or specialized knowledge as you like.

Nanni Moretti's deserved winner of the Palme D'Or was a controversial choice, if only because it is a film grounded in reality and truth. We know these characters for a change, they are the neighbours whom we fear approach because of their loss and raw pain.

Moretti, in his subtle yet magnificent performance and in his deft, assured direction, has crafted a film which transcends cliche and sentimentality in spite of its well trodden subject matter. As in his earlier effort, 'Caro Diario' the viewer is held transfixed by his languid cinematic storytelling, which is nonetheless riveting.

Without resorting to pat endings or easy solutions to the characters' individual suffering (beautifully rendered by each of the performers, whose roles portray distinct yet relevant facets of grief) the film manages a redemption in unexpected, yet highly satisfying, fashion. I left the screening at the Toronto International Film Festival feeling completely exhilarated and grateful to this natural filmmaker.

A beautiful portrait of true, real emotion.

This is certainly a well-made film, but it lacks the interest, focus, acting (and surprise ending) of In the Bedroom. The characters are vaguely appealing, but very little in the way of character development happens after the family loses their son. I found myself checking my watch frequently because the pace is so slow (and I generally LIKE slow paces). It didn't seem like there was much point to the whole drama, except to show the details and grief around losing a loved one. That's fine, but I wanted more, some sort of transcendence. I almost felt like the film had been written during a grieving process, not after the whole thing had been digested. I would certainly NOT recommend it to anyone currently in grief, however. It would be torturous to watch.

The family ties in this film are so astoundingly true to life, it almost brings back the tears... I cannot think of a better film dealing with grief than La Stanza del Figlio, I swear on my own life. You could think that there was nothing new to bring to the subject of the movie, and boy would you be very very wrong. Moretti deals with the loss of his son in such an amazingly realistic way, it's almost scary... And the sister, played by Jasmine Trinca, is also an endearing character. You truly and deeply feel what their family feels - the negative reviews on this type of movie are ill-directed because they are NOT the target audience. They unfortunately sneaked in the wrong theater !!

Moretti's best. Period.

Nanni Moretti directs and stars in this small-scale Italian drama, which won the Palm d'or at Cannes that year. It seems like a pretty poor choice, in my opinion. It's not a bad movie, really, but it's pretty unambitious. It strikes me as a lot like your average American indie drama. Moretti stars as a psychologist who has a great relationship with his loving family (wife Laura Morante, daughter Jasmine Trinca and son Giuseppe Sanfelice). The first half hour of the film is comprised of telling us how content they are - thirty to thirty-five minutes of this boring family sitting around loving each other. Unnecessary. One scene would have sufficed. Then the big tragedy happens: the son drowns in a scuba diving accident. The rest of the film is just about the other three dealing with it. It's all fine, I suppose, but, really, there's not much insight into the situation - certainly nothing we haven't seen before. The only plot point that occurs during the final hour of the film has to do with a secret girlfriend whom Sanfelice has left behind (Sofia Vigliar), who eventually shows up at their door. One of the bigger problems the film has is Moretti's performance - he's really weak. Morante and Trinca are pretty good, however.

The Son's Room (Italian: La stanza del figlio) (2001) Director: Nanni Moretti Watched: 4/2018 5/10

Simple without flair, Bad therapist portrayal, Honest but timid with risks, Still good classroom viewing for Five stages of grief tour.

Tanka, literally "short poem", is a form of poetry consisting of five lines, unrhymed, with the 5-7-5-7-7 syllable format. #Tanka #PoemReview

Giovanni (Nanni Moretti) is a capable psychiatrist revered by his patients, who copes with his work because he knows a loving wife, son and daughter are waiting for him at the end of the working day. The sudden death of their son in a diving accident threatens to destroy the remaining family, as each retreats to grieve in their own way. An unexpected visitor allows them to make the journey, quite literally, to the other side of remorse.

You can tell this is not a Hollywood film because for the first 30 minutes, nothing happens. Giovanni works, comes home, cooks, runs, makes love to his wife, engages with his children while giving them their space. It is all very naturalistic and convincing, but there is no drama. Suddenly, a small item is snatched in the market, a car horn is blown - small, incidental fragments that are portents of the end of everyone's life in this family as they know it. Tomorrow, they will all be someone else.

And so Andrea dies and the grief kicks in. But they get better. The film engages you by creating multi-dimensional, charming yet flawed characters who we believe in and so care for when their world gets turned upside down. What happens to them you already know; how it happens is what keeps you watching. I enjoyed it without feeling the need to offer up tears; I felt the death as a sadness rather than a tragedy. This will not be everyone's cup of tea as a film, but the small moments that constitute our lives are faithfully represented, and the continuous montage of patients in Giovanni's office provides humour and pathos. This was my first Moretti film. There is enough here to bring me back.

I will be straightforward with all. This movie, with all the build up and in view of the Palme d'or and hailing from Italy which does have its share of good movies, is a huge disappointment.

Three reasons why, and I will be very short. 1) The acting is stiff, awful and without any emotions or talent. The only one that I could rate above average would be, surprisingly, the daughter; she plays her part reasonably well. All the others are motionless, and emotionless, a way of acting which certainly does not belong in this movie.

2) the script. The movie doesn't go anywhere. It just kinda lingers along. Nothing really happens. Now I'm not talking about exploding cars or that type of action, i'm talking about development of characters, psychological changes, good screenplay. None of that.

3) I have never seen a movie so boring that treats a subject as emotional and difficult as the loss of a son in such an unemotional and uninteresting way.

Since I don't want to include any spoilers, I won't go into too much details. The film is not worth it anyway. This is by far one of the worst movies I have ever seen, especially in view of what I had expected.

Moretti becomes more mature, more intimate, more personal. While playing an increasing role in Italian politics (with his movement of opposition to the right-wing government), in his films he has abandoned the sharp political criticism of his debut (Ecce Bombo, Io sono un Autarchico), and the cynical and funny social observations of "Bianca," "Palombella Rossa," and "Caro Diario" to give us a compelling portrait of grief.

A noticeable thing about this film is that the stupidity and ignorance of the MPAA gave it an R rating. Apparently, according to the MPAA, teenagers are welcome to see the stupid violence of "Independence Day," or the idiotic cardboard characters of "Spider Man" (both rated PG-13), but should not, except under adult supervision, know that the death of a teenage child is a shocking and traumatizing experience for a family, and could shatter their painfully constructed unity.

The decision of the MPAA provoked outrage in Italy and surprise in Europe. It is amazing that people of such obvious ignorance should be allowed to make such crucial decisions: they should be held responsible for the garbage they feed to teenagers, and for keeping them away from meaningful films.

Maybe it's at that point that you realize the extent of your loss or why the aftermath of the death is worse than the death itself...

"The Son's Room", directed and starring Nanni Moretti, is the kind of dramas that don't take risks and adopt rather sober approaches to their themes; emotions aren't overplayed, there's no real plot twist or explosive climax and at the end but we're left with the satisfaction of having shared slices of lives that could have been ours. This is not to diminish its emotional power -there are some heart-wrenching moments in the film- but just to say that, as simple as it is, the emotional mechanism works. It won the Golden Palm of 2001, and it reminded me of other winners directed by the Dardennes brothers, movies meant to show a certain sad reality and implicitly admitting that happiness, for what it's worth, is still cinematically dull.

The film is about a family stricken by the loss of one of their members, the father Giovanni (Moretti) is a psychiatrist, the wife Paola (Laura Morante) is a caring mother and the sister Irene (Jasmine Trinca) is a typical young teenager, sociable and sporty (she's part of the basketball team). Andrea (Giuseppe Sanfelice) isn't a rebellious teenager though his character-establishing moment is a school incident involving the stealing of a fossil. This episode that occupies a fair portion of the first act seems rather anecdoctal once we get to the tragedy, I guess it was a way to show that this family has its fair of shortcomings but they never went as far as life-threatening situations. Andrea was the kind of son that wouldn't cause any trouble to his parents, which makes his death not only sadder but crueler in its freakiness: a diving accident.

Interestingly, the accident involves the father's occupation, as a dedicated pro, he decides to visit one of his patients at home, thus delaying a jogging session with Andrea, which lead him to go dive with his friends. This connection brings a dimension of guilt in the handling of the death, Giovanni keeps wondering what if he decided to give priority to his son, would he or would he have not avoided the accident? The movie only alludes to that thinking, there's never a meltdown about it nor that Giovanni confronts the patient who indirectly started the chain of events, but it shows an important aspect of grief: there always comes a time when we ask ourselves when things started to go wrong. I had the same questioning following my divorce and I tended to look at events within a specific timeline: when I could change things and when the point of no return was reached already, that was mental torture as If things weren't bad enough.

But we do empathize with Nanni for things are perfectly fine during the first act, pinaccling with that moment where the four members are all singing together, so there is a tremendous feeling of waste. Giovanni (who reminded me of French actor François Cluzet) is a perfectly stable man, the epitome of decency, a good husband, a dutiful parent and yet all the foundations of his life are thrown away with that tragedy and there's nothing he can hang on, he's just too moral to consider insanity or suicide as options. But the choice of his profession is interesting because psychiatrists deal with people struggling with the present and the future while his own future is characterized by the termination of his son's life marked by these nails screwed onto the coffin. Not to mention how petty and trivial their whining can sound.

The merit of the film is to display these complexities without the pretensions to offer answers, when Giovanni decides to take a leave of absence, we understand his motives but we're not given solutions. All we see is that the equilibrium of the family is threatened and each member wanders in one isle of grief, dealing with sadness, anger (the sister is involved in a fight during the game) and disbelief. This is basically a film about the various stages of grief striking normal people... or ordinary people, a nod to Robert Redford's film, perhaps the closest in spirit to the "Son's Room". The film could have ended in a similar note, Andrea could have been the pillar without which the family collapsed, Laura could have left Giovanni or Irene turn into a hoodlum, but again, the narrative avoids these tricks and adopts a more serene approach.

Time goes by and an interesting little twist, involving a hidden love, takes the family to the right path, the one that simply says you that life goes on and that the family might have lost a dear one, but it is their grief and what separated them for a while that can connect them forever. Once again, this is not a statement made by the film, some would rather find the ending too anticlimactic or easy, even corny, but the film doesn't end on a happy note, only on a light of hope. Things could get worse but it's part of our nature to lean toward the positive instead of imagining the worse... as long as we're able to overcome that mental block and make the difficult but necessary choice to turn the page... or write a new chapter.

"The Son's Room" has a remarkable sobriety though it's not devoid of heart-breaking moments, the whole sequence involving the announcing of the death is a masterpiece of realism and might be too upsetting for people who lost someone It's all to Moretti's credit to alternate between moments of serenity and a few emotional peaks while avoiding the avalanche of pathos. For that moment only when the sister understands the news, I couldn't give a film a negative review no matter what would happen after.

The film starts out with the portrayal of an ordinary caring family, where every member pursues his own interests and goals. The father, a psychiatrist (the director Nanni Moretti), is a reserved man, who manages to keep the family member's close. This part of the movie is a built-up to the second part, which deals with the death of the son and how the remaining family members cope with this tragedy in their own way. Although the death of the son is dividing the family at first, the coping with this loss is the binding factor and helps the family, mainly through the father, come closer again.

The period after the son's death is by far the most emotional part of this movie. The father wandering on a fairground with people of his son's age, the normally quiet daughter becoming aggressive in a sports match, the mother searching a way to come closer at the wrong time are memorable images. This is a movie (like Cast Away) where not much happens, but it keeps to be interesting. The main reason for this are the acting performances, especially by the father and the mother (Laura Morante).

However, on several levels this movie is not perfect. First, the story line is very thin (after all, it can be summed up in four lines). But there's more bad news: The technical aspects like art direction, camerawork and editing are poorly executed and none of these aspects are used in favor of the story. On this level there are several lost opportunities. Then there's the pacing of the movie, which is unnecesseraly slow because the compelling story is not supported enough by compelling images (this isn't a Tarkovsky movie). Then there's the portrayal of the psychiatric patients, halfway between serious and funny, and in a way this portrayal comes over helplessly unlikely.

A movie that wins a festival like Cannes has to have something extraordinary. This movie has not. It is either a compromise choice by a jury in disarray (probably shocked after the Berlin vote for Intimacy) or Cannes 2001 was indeed a very bad year.

Moretti made the excellent "Dear Diary" and amusing "Aprile". However this could be his masterpiece, and was well worth the Palme d'Or.

You have a warmth for Moretti's characters, and perhaps that makes his pain even more powerful. The record shop and fairground scenes are particularly strong. Before that it is also a film that perfectly captures the warmth of a strong family life.

I found the movie a bit flat and disappointing. Of course I did not expect (or want) action, as in Hollywood productions, but this is more like a documentary of sort, a psychiatrist's research paper on loss and grief, and it left me cold. I dare say that this is not what film-making is all about.

The symbolism was all on the surface and rather obvious, I think, but no one mentioned the ending, when the family accompanies the two hitch-hikers and cross the border to France, indicating they crossed somehow the boundary of their grief and arrived at a new stage.

What can I say except that I need to see it again? I try to write down what I think but somehow I prefer scribbling some jargon on a note pad... there are also a lot of hidden details to previous films that you have to watch out for with your eyes wide shut. The images haunt you and leave you mourning. Ecstasy for having encountered cinema at it's most powerful. How to portray pain in film? the symptoms of anguish? the rituals involved... The most striking scene for me is at the fairground. It hits you like a freight train and leaves you mesmerized for the second half of the film. The son's room is at the bottom of the sea, on the surface of an instant photo, a secret path though many a different door... Press replay on what is not past nor future but pure emotion of imagining what will never be, love streams, the loneliness of long distant runner... Tragedy and crisis (individual and social and it's many other meanings!) have always been present in Nanni's cinema but here he's reached an unprecedented maturity. One minor flaw is the stereotypical portrayal of the patients treated by Moretti playing a psychoanalyst. It's a little too predictable for such an original filmmaker although I'm well aware that the patients are all movie projectors projecting the artist's own constant obsessions. I do hope English speaking viewers will have a chance to see it.

I've seen this movie because it has won the Palm D'or in Cannes. I usually love the palm D'or movies, but this was not the case. Although "La stanza del figlio" is a good picture, it is a sad movie where nothing seems to happen. If I had filmed that screenplay it would last only 30 minutes, not two hours. Maybe that's why the Cannes Jury liked it, but I didn't find this movie good enough to win a Palm D'or.

But you should see, if you aren't sleepy. Than you may take your own conclusions.

This is the first time I am posting on IMDb. Yep, that's how bad the movie was and seeing so many wonderful reviews on it made me compelled to write. The acting was really bad, stiff. Can you imagine paying this shrink for your sessions? I didn't believe any of these characters, except maybe some of the patients. Overall just a pretentious attempt. I want 99 minutes of my life back, so that I can play free cell or just anything even slightly more engaging than this movie. It absolutely cannot be compared with In the Bedroom, that's just in a different league. I love European movies, when the characters are REAL. Here the acting was stunningly flat and non-engaging.