Mia Madre – first look review

Nan­ni Moretti’s per­son­al film about a busy direc­tor and her dying moth­er is mis-sold by blurbs that focus on the rela­tion­ship between the two. The moth­er in ques­tion, Ada (Giu­lia Laz­zari­ni), is large­ly shunt­ed off stage right as the action unfolds stage left. As madre lies in a hos­pi­tal bed, her daugh­ter, Margheri­ta (Margheri­ta Buy), is pre­oc­cu­pied by the task of shoot­ing a film about strik­ing fac­to­ry work­ers. She puts in the hours with Ada in the evening but unlike her broth­er Gio­van­ni (Nan­ni Moret­ti), who has tak­en a leave of absence from work, the chaos of every­day life on a film set per­sists in being the loud­est parts of her day and sub­se­quent­ly of this film.

For all the trou­bled dreams that Margheri­ta has and the love they infer, she is a woman vol­un­tar­i­ly caught up in the machin­ery of life and unwill­ing to take a mean­ing­ful sab­bat­i­cal to engage with the tem­po of approach­ing death. The film suf­fers from the same mixed-up pri­or­i­ties. What should be a mov­ing, even if neglect­ed, rela­tion­ship plays like an under­de­vel­oped subplot.

This leaves space for John Tur­tur­ro to do his wacky livewire thing. Not since The Big Lebows­ki has he strut­ted his comedic stuff as explo­sive­ly. As man­ic Amer­i­can actor Bar­ry Hug­gins he is play­ing rock’n’roll to the rest of the cast’s string con­cer­to. This would be dis­tract­ing if only the key events had grav­i­tas. As they don’t, he is a wel­come cym­bal clash. A solo musi­cian that makes you want to rise out of your chair and dance. Bar­ry boasts about his rela­tion­ship with Stan­ley Kubrick, propo­si­tions Margheri­ta on the first night and can’t remem­ber his lines, smooth­ing over all mis­steps with a big infec­tious Hol­ly­wood laugh. The best cut of the film has his din­ner sing-song sud­den­ly trans­posed to a car sing-song. Barry’s joie de vivre has noth­ing do with the main arc. He is just there mak­ing noise.

A young daugh­ter and a recent ex are the oth­er forces at play in Margherita’s life. The for­mer is a sweet­ie that trots along, fret­ting over Latin. The lat­ter lays down some hurt-dri­ven home truths on the way Margheri­ta treats oth­ers. This could have been Moretti’s chance to show aware­ness of the where his lead char­ac­ter sits with­in the nar­ra­tive forces. But the accu­sa­tions don’t match with the char­ac­ter we see so the exchange plays as yet more quib­bling as the moth­er­ship goes down.

There’s a moment dur­ing the shoot­ing of the film with­in the film when Margheri­ta argues with her cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er over his cam­era focus dur­ing a clash between strik­ers and the police. ​“Do you want to be with the ones being hit or the ones doing the hit­ting?” she asks, query­ing his moral sid­ing. An equiv­a­lent ques­tion could be asked of Moret­ti. He has giv­en us a film about the biggest hit a per­son can take with­out ever engag­ing with how it feels to take that.