Review of Son`s Room, The

Introduction

La Stanza del Figlio (The Son`s Room), written and directed by well known Italian actor/director Nanni Moretti is about a family that tries to deal with the tragic accidental death of their son.

Video

This is presented with a 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer which on the whole isn`t too bad. There is evidence of some grain but it`s quite minor and the contrast has been boosted a little which leads to some edge enhancement, not too discernible in some scenes, but it is noticeable. I noticed a few encoding issues too where characters are moving quickly. You can see very slight smearing around the edges, again it`s not a major issue but I would have thought a higher or variable bitrate would overcome this problem.

The colours and details are well reproduced and the Italy we see looks open, clean and undoubtedly cosmopolitan.

Audio

There`s just one soundtrack here, an Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 track. Since this is a dialogue driven film the Italian tongue flows effortlessly and it does what it sets out to do. The sound is crystal clear with no noticeable problems.

Features

Easy to navigate static menus with just one extra:

• Original Theatrical Trailer (1:00) - This is a Miramax trailer which doesn`t give anything away thanks to voiceover man.

No bios or other extras for this film is a bit of a poor showing. I`d like to have some background on the cast that I`ve just spent 90 minutes watching. Who are they? What other films have they done? Film recommendations would be good too. A wasted opportunity to sell me other titles.

The English subtitles work well and keep good time with the Italian soundtrack.

Conclusion

The first third of the film sets up the relationships in the family. You can see how effectively close knit they are and the consequences of losing a member of the family is quite severe. It works well and almost had me bawling my eyes out. Unfortunately the film went somewhat downhill from here on in. Why? Well, there`s nothing new here at all. Watching the perfect family fall apart through this bereavement offers no new insight. We know what will happen because it`s all too predictable.

Giovanni`s wife, Paola, feels distanced by the way she feels about the loss of Andrea, and it`s not the same way that Giovanni feels. The same is true of their daughter, Irene. As a psychiatrist, Giovanni is unable to help himself and this seems in itself a little trite.

The family, about 45 minutes later seem to be well on the road to recovery thanks to the letter that a girlfriend of their dead son unknowingly sends. They all meet and this has some kind of therapeutic effect. There`s nothing compelling in the story and I found myself drifting off watching the clock. Yes it`s a tragedy and no one disputes this, but the writing and direction here is barely average. Thankfully the film is only 95 minutes long, but long enough.

This film was a winner of the 2001 Palme d`Or at the Canne Film Festival, but I can`t honestly see how or why it would win. It`s akin to a TV movie I`d watch on Channel 5, so with this in mind, it`s really not worth bothering with.