| Movie Review of "The Son's Room" Hey people, this was the one that won it. I�ve reviewed a mind-bending movie in which the chief highlights includes a lesbo lovefest as well as a movie about a piano teacher who likes sniffing dirty tissue paper at sex shops (if you know what I mean) and writing horny letters to herself. Two movies that were both nominated for the Best Picture at the Cannes Film Festival, but this here, �The Son�s Room�, is the Italian film that won it. Given the experiences I had with the two other contenders, I entered the cinema thinking to myself as to whether �The Son�s Room� was going to be some excuse for, you know, some secret gay sex club or something like that. I mean, that�d pretty much cover all the bases, wouldn�t it? Then, Cannes Film Festival can well and truly be re-christened Cannes Porn Film Festival. Thankfully for me, and (maybe) unfortunately for you, we�re spared the sex for this one. Oh, by the way, spoilers ahead. You�ve been warned. Let�s just introduce the main characters in the movie. It revolves around a family : Giovanni (the father), Paola (the mother), Irene (the daughter) and Andrea (the son). The movie begins with Giovanni completing a run through the Italian town of his residence. He stops to take a drink in a coffee shop and he sees a group of Hare Krishna worshippers parading through the streets. He then walks up to them and, well, kinda mingles. Yeah, that�d happen. I mean, no offence to all the people of the Hare Krishna faith that are reading this (yes, all 244 of you), but just walking about, in the middle of a religious procession, seems rather rude to me. And you can�t really discount the possibility of being carted off and, um, being forcibly converted or something like that. Yeah, I know that sounds really stupid, and apparently, the director thinks so too, because we then zoom to the next scene, where Giovanni gets a phone call from Andrea�s school. Ah, someone�s been a naughty boy. Giovanni goes to the school and finds out that Andrea has been accused of stealing some fossil from the science lab. Hey, Andrea? I could think of at least a dozen things better to steal from a science lab than a fossil. How about a microscope? Or one of those electric lead thingies so you can torture your pet or something? Wouldn�t that be fun? You wuss. Stealing a dead preserved animal. Anyway, Giovanni is a psychiatrist, and we are introduced to a host of his patients. He then tries to psychoanalyse Andrea�s actions. Andrea claims his innocence in the matter, but Giovanni is somewhat disbelieving. Paola basically tells him to stow it, and that he should just shut up and trust his son. Who are we missing? Yes, Irene the basketball-playing daughter, whom I initially mistook for a guy the first time she appeared onscreen. Irene returns home from basketball practice (since she is, after all, the basketball-playing daughter) and chides Giovanni, asking him not to mention the fossil incident to Andrea. Yes, Giovanni, every single person is asking you to shut up, so just do us that favour and seal it. Anyway, the first act serves to establish that the family is close, and they even sing in the car to show us how tightly-knit they are. This can�t be good. Someone�s gonna die at some point. Next day. Or well, maybe a few days later, I dunno. Paola is dutifully cutting veggies in the kitchen, preparing some dinner, when Andrea walks in. He admits to her that he did steal the fossil but he did not mean to do it. Hey, Andrea? You know what? The day you actually mean to steal something like a fossil should be the day you get institutionalised. Put that in your diary. Sunday. Giovanni and family are sitting around eating breakfast. Giovanni invites Andrea to go for a jog with him to the harbour. Irene doesn�t go because, well, you guessed it, she�s got basketball practice. Anyway, Andrea agrees and just as they are about to tuck into breakfast, the phone rings. It�s Giovanni�s patient, and he absolutely needs to see him right away. And he needs Giovanni to pay him a house call because it�s urgent. Giovanni thinks about it, is swayed by the urgency in Patient�s voice, and agrees. In a tension-building scene, we watch as Giovanni nearly swerves onto the path of a lorry, Paola nearly gets herself involved in a robbery, and Irene the basketball-playing daughter almost gets into an accident while fooling around on her scooter. We also see Andrea preparing to go scuba-diving. In the next scene, we find out that Patient�s problems aren�t really that life-threatening, and wouldn�t even get me out of bed on a good day, if I were to be a psychiatrist. I�m sure all of you are quite glad right now that I�m not one. Giovanni listens, and then returns home, whereby he sees the police, and the father of Andrea�s friend. Turns out Andrea had problems scuba-diving, and died. Giovanni rushes to the hospital, and the scenes here are difficult for me to recap. We then see Andrea�s coffin, and final farewells are said. Paola, Irene and myself start crying as the coffin is welded shut. After this, the movie moves on to how the family deals with this sudden loss. It�s very well done, and very realistically portrayed. Giovanni loses interest in his job and decides to take some time out, and keeps on trying to find a reason for the accident. He blames himself, and has flashbacks to what would have happened if he had not agreed to see the patient in the first place. Paola tells him Andrea would still have gone diving, although she herself is also hurting. She discovers a letter some weeks later written by a girl whom Andrea met in summer camp, and she goes about wanting to meet this girl, to see what she thought of Andrea, and what kind of person she is. As for Irene, well, she basically starts getting into fights at basketball matches, and cries in the fitting room during a shopping trip. The movie is rather slow-moving at this point, and I did drift off to sleep for a while there. Serious. Enter The Girl Andrea Loved (TGAL). One day, she decides to pay a visit to the family. TGAL brings photos that Andrea took of himself, and Giovanni cries. Giovanni also cries during one of his sessions with his patients. There�s a lot of crying. Such is grief, I suppose. And the grief of a parent at the death of a child is possibly the toughest to deal with. I mean, look at what happened on �In The Bedroom�. Paola returns home from shopping with Irene, and she finally gets to meet TGAL. They have a chat, and TGAL has to go. She�s actually hitch-hiking with a boyfriend of hers to France. TGAL, you slut! You and the fossil-stealing Andrea deserve each other! Anyway, Giovanni decides to drop TGAL and TGAL�s boy at a service station, but they fail to find any means of hitching. Giovanni decides to drive them further on, and TGAL and her homie fall asleep at the back, and so Giovanni keeps on driving and driving and driving and driving, and what do you know? We�re at the French border, bright and early in the morning. They get down, have breakfast, as Giovanni asks Paola if the punk is TGAL�s boyfriend. Paola is about to tell Giovanni to shut up and just open his eyes (okay, I added that last part) when Giovanni tells her he doesn�t need to know. He has made his peace. TGAL and her hunk take their leave. Giovanni, Paola, and Irene take a walk along the coast towards the sea, ready to move on with their lives. R.D.�s Rating : This falls somewhere between a HOUND DAWG and a RAWKING DAWG. The emotions in this film are very effectively conveyed, and succinctly portrayed. A visit to �The Son�s Room� is highly recommended. (What�s HOUND/RAWKING DAWG? Check out the rating system here.) Sound off!! Would you steal a fossil over a microscope? What did the entire Hare Krishna scene have to do with anything in the movie? Were you entertained by Irene�s catfight on the basketball court? Where da sex on this one? Tell me here. |