Mia Madre **** (2015, Margherita Buy, John Turturro, Giulia Lazzarini, Nanni Moretti) – Movie Review

Co-writer/director Nanni Moretti combines a devastating heartbreaker with comedy, a difficult trick to pull off, but he does so commandingly and seemingly effortlessly.

Margherita Buy tugs at the heart strings as Margherita, a film director in the middle of an existential crisis, who has to deal with an impossible, egocentric, untalented American star called Barry Huggins (John Turturro) on her new film as well as the inevitable but still unacceptable loss of her mother. Turturro manages to make the ridiculous Huggins character very funny. Moretti also plays Margherita’s rather cooler brother Giovanni.

It was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2915, but it had to be content with the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, which cited ‘A well-crafted, fine film suffused with humour that elegantly explores the human journey through loss to new beginnings.’ It received a near-eight-minute standing ovation at Cannes and you can see why.

Moretti is also the director of Caro Diario (1993) and The Son’s Room [Il Stanzo di Figlio] (2001).

© Derek Winnert 2015 Movie Review

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