The Son's Room: calm and slow cry

When it received the “Palme d'Or”, the grand prize of the 2001 Venice Film Festival, The Son's Room was criticized by many for exactly some of its best qualities. Seen as sentimental, simplistic and common, the film empathizes with the audience that allows a calm and slow cry during many scenes.

This complicity happens because, although compartmentalized by doors, such as the one that divides the Sermonti family house and the father's office, the subjects interpenetrate and intersect to the point of influencing the fate of the characters.

Nanni Moretti, the director, acts as Giovanni, a psychoanalyst who listens to various patients with apparent distrust in the process of remembering, repeating, and reworking. Thus, it accomplishes the task mechanically, even going rambling.

After the attendance, Giovanni goes through the door that shares the office with the house and plunges into domestic issues. He and his wife Paola (Laura Morante) are worried about their son Andrea (Giuseppe Sanfelice), who was accused of stealing a fossil from the school's science lab. He denies it. Daughter Irene (Jasmine Trinca) studies Latin with her weird boyfriend.

When the fatal accident with Andrea occurs, the family kind of breaks down. The scene is striking when, during a basketball attack, Irene is surprised by the presence of her father (who was to give the tragic news), and at first smiles, then completely paralyzes.

The question that arises is: how to continue leading life in the same way? How can a professional who welcomes others' pain continue to pursue the profession despite his own tragedy? Giovanni tries to be oblivious, has a crying attack during the session with an obsessive-compulsive, and ends up blaming the cancer patient for his son's death.

One day out of nowhere comes a letter from Arianna (Sofia Vigliar) who had a connection with Andrea. The entry of this character, hitherto unknown to all, will give serenity and a new perspective to mourning.

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