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MY MOTHER'S SMILE Send This Review to a Friend
An attraction at the 2002 New York Film Festival and the Toronto international Film Festival, “My Mother’s Smile” is finally getting a well-deserved commercial release. Director Marco Bellocchio daringly spoofs the sainthood process of the Catholic Church, and with the controversy surrounding contemporary sainthood politics, the film still has relevance and probably always will.
This case involves an attempt to get the Church to bestow sainthood on a woman who was murdered by a mentally ill son. At the center of Bellocchio's story is Sergio Castellitto as Ernesto, brother of the murderer. He is a non-believer who thinks the idea of making his late mother a saint is ridiculous.
Ernesto bears the brunt of family members trying to push through sainthood for their own selfish reasons. Ernesto dotes on his young son, and falls for a woman who says she's the boy's religious teacher. This is a very witty, droll and accomplished film that has many things to say about life, church-wise and otherwise, in contemporary Italy.
The acting is on a high level and the threads of the story are interestingly detailed as the manipulation rages between relatives. The film doesn’t flinch from its acerbic viewpoint. A New Yorker Films release.
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