My Mother (2015)

Original Title

Mia madre

Genre

Drama

Director

Nanni Moretti

Country

Italy

Cast

Margherita Buy, John Turturro, Giulia Lazzarini, Nanni Moretti, Beatrice Mancini, Stedano Abbati, Enrico Ianniello, Anna Bellato, Toni Laudadio

Storyline

Margherita (Margherita Buy) has to deal with the loss of her mother (Giulia Lazzarini) while directing a complex film set in the contemporary scenario of economic crisis. 

Opinion

I haven't seen any other of Nanni Moretti's films. Actually, I never cared much for his films. Or modern Italian cinema for what matters. Still, there was something about this one that made me want to see it, and I'm glad I did because it was a really nice and quite heart-wrenching drama.

The power of My Mother lays on its story and the way that story is told. As much as I'd like to say the story is great, I can't say that because there's really nothing great about the main focus of the film, the loss of a mother. This part of the story, the most important and deep, has a very slow pace, and it's that very pace that shows what it's like to slowly lose someone you love (it's very easy to relate). Margherita, just like all of us, knows that her mother will eventually die, but just because you know something is going to happen, sooner or later, it doesn't mean you are prepared for it.

And that's when comes to use the second storyline, that having Margherita struggling to finish her film. Her life is so complicated, the film she's directing, as important as it may be, seems too simple, stupid even.

Another interesting aspect of My Mother is how the figure of Margherita's brother, Giovanni, played by Moretti himself. He knows his mother won't get any better and quits his job in order to stay with her and help her. To see him feeding his mother and taking care of her as if she was a child was heart-breaking and heart-warming at the same time.

At last, there are the performances. Margherita Buy gives a strong performance as the middle-aged woman struggling both in private and working life, and John Turturro, who plays the American actor who is driving Margherita insane, lightens the tone of the film. The best performance, however, comes from Giulia Lazzarini who gives a truly moving performance as the mother, portraying the sickness with such sensitivity.