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The Son's Room
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Metascore
73 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 34 Critics What's this?

User Score
8.8 out of 10

Universal acclaim- based on 9 Ratings

Your Score
10 out of 10
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  • Starring: Laura Morante, Nanni Moretti
  • Summary: An Italian psychoanalyst and his family must overcome their grief following the death of their son in a freak diving accident that changes their lives forever.

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 27 out of 34
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 34
  3. Negative: 1 out of 34
  1. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Wilmington
    100
    Moretti gives us something different but very important. He shows us how life goes on.
  2. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    60
    Veering on the maudlin, the film ultimately succeeds by striking a universal chord on the subject of inconsolable loss. It's a stirring, humane testament from a surprising source.
  3. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    30
    The film portrays a family undone by grief over the death of a loved one; that, in any event, is its plot synopsis. More accurately, the film is a wallow of authorial narcissism, and a tedious, unrelenting, uninteresting wallow at that.

See all 34 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 6
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 6
  3. Negative: 0 out of 6
  1. JMc
    10
    I rented The Son's Room again the other day, after many years. I was stunned by the understated emotional wallop it packed. That final scene is the most haunting damn thing. I can't get it out of my mind. I'm going to the shops now to see if I can buy the DVD.… Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  2. lasttimeisaw
    6
    I watched this film several years before on TV, but interrupted and left unfinished, this time finally completed in the Febiofest’s special program of Nanni Moretti’s canon. The general thoughts after watching it in the cinema is that this Cannes’ Palme d’Or winner is lagging behind its award-winning prestige, during the whole process, it is difficult to single out any extraordinariness from it, which baffles me so much. The narrative is rather mediocre, any anticipated set piece are orchestrated in a mannered template, leaves a mawkish and maudlin impression of ennui (Brian Ono’s BY THE RIVER is overtly pretentious here). The pain of losing one’s dearest is a torment could slowly erode one’s soul and drop in from time to time, which has nothing unexpectedly thrilling or soothing from the film’s exposition. If Moretti could be ranked as the Italian equivalence of Woody Allen, I divine the chief enjoyment should spring from its script and dialogue, in this case it is just as barren and conventional like as other tacky family tearjerkers, in spite of a hotchpotch of various patients of the psychiatrist adds up some emotional bite while being not too sharp-wittedly different from other generic shrink cliches. Compared with QUIET CHAOS (2008), another bereavement drama starring Moretti under the helm of Antonello Grimaldi, which fetches a 7/10, THE SON’S ROOM is a torrent of tepid water, the warmth it heats up is not as unaffected as I had expected. The whole cast did a good job but nothing attracts any special attention, while Laura Morante’s tearless grief of losing her only son is over-stagy, ironically Moretti is a much more natural actor by comparison, after all, the film does not deserve his overstated cachet, nor does Nanni Moretti.… Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes

See all 6 User Reviews