Outside Italy, filmmaker Nanni Moretti is best known for “Dear Diary” (or “Ciao Diario,” 1993), in which he dramatized his own cancer scare, and “My Son’s Room” (2001), a drama about a family absorbing the shock of a child’s sudden death.
His latest, “Mia Madre,” is about the mortal illness of a mother. Given the gravity of these topics, it may come as a surprise that Moretti was originally known for his comic talent — and that “Mia Madre” is actually full of humor.
But it is. That balance is needed, because we know the title character is dying from the beginning of the film.
Margherita (played by Margherita Buy, charismatic star of the lovely “A Five Star Life”) is a successful film director, associated with serious social-issue pictures. She’s shooting a movie in Rome about a factory strike.
Her mother Ada (Giulia Lazzarini) is in the hospital. Once a beloved professor of Latin, Ada is now reduced to waiting for tests to arrive and hoping for home-cooked food.
Margherita and her brother (played by Moretti) tend their mother in different ways. The brother has taken a leave of absence from work, but Margherita is burdened by the responsibilities of guiding a big, complicated film set every day.
The filming process is the source of much humor, thanks to the presence of John Turturro. He plays a needy, egotistical Hollywood actor named Barry Huggins, hired to star in the Italian production. (I suspect Europeans think all Americans have names like Barry Huggins.)
Turturro’s really fun. By turns commanding and infantile, his pompous actor forgets his lines and blames other people. It’s exactly what Margherita doesn’t need.
These comic moments balance out the movie, which is generally quiet and thoughtful. Moretti focuses on telling details, and occasionally includes a scene that we realize must be one of Margherita’s daydreams — it’s like seeing potential scenes from one of her future movies.
It’s a pleasure to see a movie about people in their 50s, assessing their lives as they deal with the long farewell of a parent. But the story also touchingly includes Margherita’s teenage daughter, who has a warm relationship with her grandmother.
Occasionally “Mia Madre” feels like a collection of notes on a subject, rather than a movie. At the end it does come together — but it happens so calmly, you might not realize it.
“Mia Madre” (3 stars)
A film director (Margherita Buy) is shooting a picture in Rome while her mother is dying. At times more a collection of notes on a subject than a movie, Nanni Moretti’s film quietly builds power as it goes — and John Turturro provides comic relief as an egotistical Hollywood actor on location in Italy. In Italian, with English subtitles.
Rating: R, for language
Showing: Seven Gables theater
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