My Mother

Melodrama is low in the genre pecking order because of its emotional exaggerations and use of stereotyped characters, most of whom are women. In this sense, Mia Madre (2016) is a purely melodramatic exploration of emotions associated with the dying of a parent as seen through the eyes of a loving daughter. This would be unoriginal on its own, so the film weaves multiple relationships into the narrative, all of which are stressed to breaking point, with a few comedic touches to make the story bearable. This matrix of emotional turbulence is standard fare in the dying parent narrative, but Mia Madre has a fine sense of balance in blending laughter and tears.

Margherita is a single-minded Italian director trying to complete a film when she learns that her mother Ada is dying. She is also dealing with a failed marriage, a teenage daughter who needs mothering, and the need to visit Ada every day. Her brother quits his job to care for Ada but Margherita tries to keep her world intact. As a perfectionist, she is demanding on the set where filming is not going well because the leading man is hopeless. Her film is about an economic downturn, a failing factory and workers facing bleak times, sub-plot lines that mirror her own fractured life. It is a moving study of how a professional woman accustomed to being in control must deal with helplessness in the face of impending tragedy. It could easily have been self- indulgent except for the almost unnerving grace and dignity with which Ada deals with dying while those around her become increasingly frayed. Audience response will depend to a large extent on their empathy for, or experience of, these stages in the life journey.

In many respects the mother is the star of this film. While hers is the less demanding acting role, she is a portrait of what many of us want to imagine as the peaceful exit of a beloved parent. Margherita on the other hand traverses an emotional roller-coaster on which the shock of what is happening forces her to review the meaning of her life. The camera often dwells too long on moments of introspection but the performances of both principals are finely nuanced, emotionally rich and entirely believable. There are many reasons to praise this film, but in the main it is for audiences willing to vicariously experience a slow and dense melodrama about loss.

A film director (Margherita Buy), in the middle of trying to do a film, has to deal with the fact that her mother is dying.

The film is inspired by the death of Nani Moretti's own mother, and we can assume that the Buy character represents him, as a movie director dealing with a difficult production, a temperamental and looney actor (John Turturro), and a terminally-ill mother she keeps telling herself is going to recover.

Anyone who has been through this life-goes-on in the face of tragedy scenario will relate to the director trying to deal with her ex-husband, her daughter, her boyfriend, her mother, and the movie - all at the same time. It's a very human story. Unfortunately you can't pick when a crisis will occur, or expect them to come one at a time.

Wonderful acting, especially Buy as her character, Margherita, tries to keep it all together as her leading man, an American who knows Italian, can't remember his lines, the extras all look like movie stars when she asked for normal everyday people, all the while visiting her mother at the hospital and being in denial about her illness.

Very good film.

Moretti tells a heart-wrenching story without using overly dramatic tones, and builds around it other story lines, which all share the theme of people coming to terms with reality. The main storyline is really moving and real, and I could totally relate to it - what I like about this film is that it is autobiographical, but you do not need to be a world-famous film director to relate to it. Through Margherita, Moretti at times will fearlessly show you the everyday routine details of both his professional and personal life, totally demystifying his world-famous-film-director persona. I really liked Margherita Buy's acting; John Turturro has a very difficult role to play, because he must continually switch between acting and meta-acting, also switching between English and Italian, but he pulls it off nicely. The last 10 seconds of this movie are the perfect ending.

Nanni Moretti may not be everybody's cup of tea, but his relevance cannot be denied. Very few artists has been so constantly present, so honestly faithful to themselves, and at the same time so careful in portraying the evolution of Italian society in the last decades. You put together the twelve movies Moretti has done in his forty years of activity and you get a perfect course in history of this country. It is not strange, then, that his latest movie looks like an attempt to portray confusion and uncertainty. As almost always, the story is based on personal experience from Moretti. In the past he has made movies about growing up and getting older (Caro Diario), movies about having a son (Aprile), and now he is sharing with the audience his reflections about the recent loss of his mother, frequently mentioned – and, once, even featured – in his works.

The story is about a director trying to complete a movie set in the contemporary scenario of economic crisis, focused on the loss of jobs in an Italian factory after the purchase of the compound from a USA investor. But the director cannot concentrate on the movie, as her old mother is dying in a hospital. There is a big difference between the main story (the death of the mother), which is told in a solemn and painfully slow way, and the story in the story (the script of the director's movie), whose lines and situations are formulaic, simple to the edge of stupidity ("Shit", as John Turturro says honestly in a moment of rage). Losing your mother is something that everybody's know is coming, sooner or later, but this doesn't mean you can be prepared: and in front of this terribly huge moment, everything else seems silly and preposterous.

The overall acting effort is really something to appreciate: Margherita Buy provides a complex, troubled counterpart for Moretti, who has limited himself to a supporting – yet important – role. John Turturro is the bright spot of the story: most of the situations where he is involved are really funny (neurotic Turturro and anxious Margherita Buy are a comedy duo with potential). Giulia Lazzarini portrays the sick mother, her energies slowly fading, with sensibility and measure: a really moving performance. She is by far the emotional centerpiece of the whole movie: in a story where everybody else seems willing to quit everything (relationships, day jobs, movie careers) for lack of meaning, the frail and weakened character of the mother, still willing to teach Latin to his niece until her very last moment and breath, actually teaches through the deep relationships she has with her family, and even with her former students, the surprising strength of human boundaries and love.

Fifteen years after having made an acclaimed film about losing a child, Nanni Moretti now tackles the subject of losing a parent. 'Mia Madre' is a thinly veiled autobiographical film: Moretti's mother died while he was making his previous film, the comedy 'Habemus Papam'. To emphasize how strongly 'Mia Madre' is based on real events, the lead character in the film is a director, and the name of the mother (Ada) is very similar to Moretti's own mother's name (Agata).

There are differences too. The director is a woman, not a man, and she is directing a serious social drama, not a comedy. While she has to give all her attention to the whimsical star of her drama, an American actor played by John Turturro, she has trouble accepting the truth of her mother's deteriorating health. Her mother simply cannot die now, she tells the doctor who breaks the sad news, because she still has so many things to do.

Moretti has done a perfect job in showing how the death of a mother makes you go through an emotional roller-coaster. Margherita, the lead character, seems to be able to cope with a lot, including her lead actor making a mess of his role, but she breaks down when she wakes up at night to find her apartment flooded. It's only after such a calamity that Margherita is able to grieve. Actress Margherita Buy gives a very touching and subtle performance as the caring daughter on the one hand and determined director on the other hand.

Turturro's role as the self-indulgent but incapable actor gives the film some comic relief, a welcome change from the emotional scenes dealing with the dying mother. Also, Moretti has inserted quite a few scenes which seem to divert from reality: sometimes you realize after a while that you're watching a dream-like scene that not really happened, but gives you some insight in what Margherita thinks or feels.

'Mia Madre' is a film about strong emotions, but it never aims at cheap tear jerking effects. Moretti perfectly knows how to deal with death.