Mia Madre

Moretti and his actors establish a kind of instant empathy that makes the story all the more affecting.

The general air of quiet intelligence throws the occasional outbursts of loud emotion into affecting relief, and John Turturro shines as the sort of unintentionally difficult star he doesn't seem like he'd be in real life.

Ma Madre is effective in dramatizing the familiar paces adult children go through tending to their parents: the hospital indignities, confused consults with doctors, and helplessness at encroaching dementia.

Quiet, kind, funny, and poignant. Only after the movie has been seen, digested, and lived with does one realize they saw something so wonderful.