Mia Madre

Love, death, cinema — they’re all there in Mia Madre, bumping up against one another beautifully.

The upshot is an emotionally satisfying fusion of the mixed up and the magical.

Among the excellent principals, top-billed Turturro enlivens things wonderfully, but the real star, Buy, is magnificent.

Moretti’s exploration of loss is unquestionably affecting, and My Mother has powerful moments, yet they’re not always well integrated with the broadly pitched moviemaking scenes, featuring a caricaturish John Turturro.

It has plenty of emotionally satisfying scenes and its share of humorous moments, but the drama and comedy mix like oil and water.

Huggins is brash and brisk, of course, with Moretti cleaving to an old-fashioned myth of the American interloper. But Turturro is slightly too broad for the occasion, relishing the outbursts of the spoiled star.

Turturro deserves four stars – but the rest of Moretti’s saggy melodrama is scarcely half as good.

PR Synopsis “Acclaimed Italian auteur Nanni Moretti finds comedy and pathos in the story of Margherita, a harried film director (Margherita Buy, A Five Star Life) trying to juggle the demands of her latest movie and a personal life in crisis. The star of her film, a charming but hammy American actor (John Turturro) imported for the production, initially presents nothing but headaches and her crew is close to mutiny. Away from the shoot, Margherita tries to hold her life together as her beloved mother's illness progresses, and her teenage daughter grows ever more distant.” I very seldom use a film’s publicity release because in many cases they give away too much as do many trailers today. Left to my own I would write about the Mother Ada, played by Giulia Lazzarini who is dying and her relationship with her daughter Margherita, played by Margherita Buy, who is directing a film within the film and her granddaughter, Livia played by Beatrice Mancini with the grandmother and granddaughter the more moving one. Ada’s son, Giovanni, played by the director of “Mia Madre” Nanni Moretti based on the story of his mother, quits his job to take care of his mother while his sister Margherita buries herself more in directing her picture to avoid dealing with her mother’s illness. Now we add an egotistical American actor, Barry Huggins, played by John Turturro who, to me, has nothing to do with the movie Margherita is making or the film “Mia Madre”! He does add a little humor here and there but seems to be used more to make the movie 106 minutes instead of 80 minutes. There is nothing wrong with any of the actors though Turturro does get a little hammy while at the same time offers the one good laugh in a dance scene. I could agree with the press release regarding ‘pathos and comedy’ if they had added 3 minutes of the former and 1 minute of the latter. I might have gone into “Mia Madre” with high expectations which were a mistake as I found 100 of the 106 minutes not living up to those expectations.