Fellini symbolism meets Dardenne grittiness in the engrossing narrative debut of Italian documentarians Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel (Babooska). The duo weaves the jagged outline of a family portrait: Patty (Gerardi) is an unemployed circus hand who stumbles upon an abandoned toddler (Crippa) at a park. While Patty's husband (Saabel) frets about the financial hit, she takes the little one along on day trips and odd jobs around Rome. It's in the periphery of this daily minutiae that Covi and Frimmel work their neorealistic magic, turning what might have been a sappy maternal-awakening melodrama into a simplistic, genuinely sweet tribute to motherhood, Italian style.
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