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100Moretti gives us something different but very important. He shows us how life goes on.
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100We feel it, in our hearts. And therein lies the great power of this small, wise film.
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91It takes skill these days, if not nerve, to put a vital, happy nuclear family on screen and to invite us to share in every quiet tremor, every gentle jostle and smile of their steady, deep-flowing contentment.
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90Moretti's actual direction is always simple, perhaps plain, but this no-frills approach allows him to gently craft a story full of poignant episodes, building toward a melancholy but genuinely uplifting conclusion.
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90In the end, it's that reserve that makes it work. Keeping his distance, the director lets viewers see in full the moments in which grief turns the world into a narrow, never-ending tunnel.
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90There’s not a whisper of melodrama or sentimentality in the way Moretti tells his tale, guiding us through the stages of grief with calm, devastating lucidity.
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90Surprisingly powerful and universal: the search for meaning and small blessings in the face of life's utter randomness.
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90Wise and surprisingly witty, the film is a minor masterpiece and could serve as a fitting companion piece to America's "In the Bedroom," another superb film about the torments of bereavement.
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With tender skill, Moretti illuminates Samuel Beckett's phrase "I can't go on -- I'll go on."
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88Not all movies can be stark, difficult and obscure. Sometimes in a quite ordinary way a director can reach out and touch us.
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88This is a superior motion picture -- an example of the pleasant surprise that can result when a skilled director departs from his usual style. By daring to be honest and unsparing, The Son's Room is meaningful.
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88Always perceptive and curiously light in tone if not in content -- such a remarkably delicate look at an absolutely devastating subject.
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80Isn't bold or daring, but it is delicately distinctive; it's the kind of picture that stirs subterranean rumbles of empathy in us rather than flashy, gushing waves.
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80The movie's rejection of even a tinge of melodrama lends it a special integrity.
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A deceivingly simple film, one that grows in power in retrospect, as the cumulative impact of so many quiet moments makes itself felt.
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78The film's closing may be less than conclusive, yet The Son's Room must be admired, at least, for its unsentimentality.
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75While the film is undeniably melancholy, Moretti's trademark light touch keeps it from becoming overbearing.
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75A stately and deeply affecting look at the human condition, told in something like a series of snapshots.
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75Moretti's performance is low-key but detailed. He makes the psychiatrist a fascinating guy, rather austere and restrained, a Northern Italian, not an expressive Neapolitan.
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75Stands apart for its raw, quiet emotion and its shattering sense of truth.
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75A triumph of gentility that earns its moments of pathos.
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75The Son's Room is the anti-"In the Bedroom." I mean that as a compliment.
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75The Son's Room refers to every room this family will inhabit for a long time -- he's an unseen, ubiquitous presence -- but they may learn to lead ordinary, even joyful lives again.
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70Occasionally melodramatic, it's also extremely effective.
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70I found this film deeply affecting as well. It has a gravity that's independent of technique, and an engaging spirit that's enhanced by flashes of comedy.
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70You leave the film like one of Giovanni's patients rising from the couch -- far from healed, but amused and pacified by the sympathy that has washed over you. [4 Feb 2002, p. 82]
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63Despite pitch-perfect performances, the craft of Moretti's direction and his honorable intentions, The Son's Room was not especially moving.
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60Veering 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.
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60A movie more to be prescribed than recommended.
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60While devotees expecting Moretti's wry worldview may feel shortchanged, others will find this a profoundly moving experience, giving it fuel to cross borders into the arthouse niche.
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50Moretti's acting skills aren't up to the demands of the main role, and his portrait of family life is too simplistic to be credible.
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50A bit too awed by its depiction of the healing power of love. It's minor indeed compared with "In the Bedroom," which deals with a similar subject and doesn't back away from the rawness of grief.
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50A measured, decorous, at times pat film that manages to be quietly moving because it touches on something real.
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30The 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.
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