Quiet Chaos

FAMILY DRAMA

When his wife collapses and dies on their lawn surrounded by chopped melon and a traumatised young daughter, Pietro (Nanni Moretti) is saving an ungrateful woman from drowning. It’s just one of several delicious ironies during a movie in which very little happens, but does so both sweetly and sourly.

Deciding to put his glittering career as a film exec on the backburner to park himself all day outside his ten-year-old girl’s school, Pietro’s life actually gets into gear with a promotion heading his way and a string of quasi-eligible females dropping in his lap. Concentrate on what really matters in life and everything else will fall in place, Antonello Grimaldi’s film (with its DVD extras of a behind the scenes featurette and interviews) seems to be saying. There’s plenty of quiet going on here and very little chaos, except deep underneath the surface of this slew of gentle misfits.