A film director is struggling to remain focussed on her latest feature with her mother seriously ill in hospital. Things are not helped by the leading man unable to remember his lines.
In its understated simplicity and slice of the everyday, Mia madre is a beautifully observed story of loss and grief. Margherita Buy is superb as Margherita, a professional woman needing to be in control but who therefore struggles to give voice to her emotions. It is only with her brother Giovanni (the film’s director, Nanni Moretti) she can be herself.
A bombastic, almost caricaturist, performance by John Turturro as the (loud) Italo-American film star upsets the quietness of Mia madre. Instead of light relief, Turturro undermines its intimacy, ensuring the two ‘parts’ of the storyline are never fully integrated.
Rating: 64%
Director: Nanni Moretti (The Son’s Room, We Have a Pope)
Writer: Nanni Moretti (The Son’s Room, We Have a Pope), Francesco Piccolo (Human Capital, The Caiman) Valia Santella (Honey, Io rom romantica)
Main cast: Margherita Buy (The Caiman, His Secret Life) Nanni Moretti (The Son’s Room, Padre Padrone), John Turturro (Margot at the Wedding, The Taking of Pelham 123)
An Opinion or Two 
I found this film quiet dense emotionally, leaning towards melodramatic as you might expect from a European director.
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I felt frustrated by the two distinct parts and the act they didn’t really integrate into a more cohesive singular narrative. The mother/daughter/brother storyline was deeply involving and emotional, but it became fractured as a result of Turturro.
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