The Son's Room

The first half-hour or so of Moretti's Palme d'Or winner deftly paints an unsentimental portrait of an ordinary, almost complacently happy family in a small Italian coastal town. Then the unthinkable occurs. The teenage son dies in a diving accident, and his parents and sister find themselves so distracted by guilt, anger and confusion that they start drifting apart. Then an unexpected letter arrives for the boy from a girlfriend they never even knew existed. Subtle, psychologically astute and engagingly unassertive in tone, the film builds gently but surely to an emotionally powerful climax in which the family - especially the psychiatrist father (Moretti) - are forced to reassess everything they ever put their faith in. Wisely, Moretti steers clear of sentimentality (though Piovani's overly sweet music provides the film's only miscalculation), allowing the deceptively simple narrative speak for itself. A gem.