The film, while uneven -- sometimes too on the nose, sometimes anecdotal and diffuse -- is generally absorbing, thanks mostly to the quality of the acting.
Comment
06/26/09
Quiet Chaos (2009)
79
%
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work 
Reviews Counted:33
Fresh:26
Rotten:7
Average Rating:6.4/10
Consensus: An understated and thoughtful insight into grief and despair, with a stellar turn from Nanni Moretti.
Theatrical Release:Jun 26, 2009 Limited
Synopsis: Nanni Moretti stars in and co-wrote this moving Italian drama about grief. Pietro (Moretti) has just lost his wife, and he is left alone with their young daughter (Blu Yoshimi). He promises the... [More]
Starring: Nanni Moretti, Valeria Golino, Isabella Ferrari, Alessandro Gassman
Director: Antonello Grimaldi
Get This Movie
Rent DVD
Click on the "ADD" button to put this movie into your Netflix queue.
Buy DVD
Reviews for Quiet Chaos
Top CriticIt's like a psychological study, but performed with grace and humanity
05/16/09
Grimaldi's elegantly understated film is a Groundhog Day of grief suppressed and life suspended.
10/20/08
Grimaldi, Moretti and their co-screenwriters have cunningly opened up the narrative cinematically.
03/03/08
Quiet Chaos feels thin and, especially towards the end, increasingly implausible. All the same, Moretti’s simpatico screen persona just about carries it.
10/24/08
A thoughtful portrait of the purgatory of grief that prefers small incidences and exchanges over grand gestures of sentiment and revelation. It’s sad – but never cloying.
10/24/08
A respectable and always watchable film about bereavement, well acted and well made.
05/22/09
Quiet Chaos is understated and restrained, perhaps too much so.
10/24/08
[Moretti delivers] a complex and complete performance...
05/22/09
Not even the momentary participation extraordinaire of a vertically challenged famous filmmaker self-exiled from the United States can save this phony pseudo-drama from its final collapse into a heap of inconsequence and male vanity.
06/24/09
Top CriticTouching and sentimental in equal measure, Quiet Chaos exhibits many traits that fans will recognise from Moretti's own films as director, such as Caro Diario (1993) and The Son's Room (2001).
05/22/09
Beautifully modulated, fluidly told film expresses pain with warm understatement.
10/18/08
Unfortunately, Quiet Chaos can’t help but become heated, and a ridiculous climax sabotages much of the emotional weight.
06/25/09
Quiet Chaos has strength and insight about the experiences that cause us to change direction in life.
05/22/09
This is a slow-burning, very well acted film that contains, almost disconcertingly, a graphic sex scene, a strange star-cameo very late on, and something close to a Hollywood ending.
10/24/08
Quiet Chaos jerkily shifts tones, from oddly comic ... to blunt. And by blunt I mean an indiscreet, in-your-face sex scene that turns the viewer from observer to pervy voyeur.
06/26/09
Moretti, present in nearly every scene, like an open wound, is ineffably empathetic.
10/24/08
The boldest stroke in Nanni Moretti’s Quiet Chaos is in what it doesn’t do, rather than what it does.
10/24/08
Moretti's performance -- unusually for an actor whose chief trait is sardonic superiority - mines a vein of self-doubt and frail desperation that, together with his tender relationship with his daughter, gives Quiet Chaos a broad human touch.
10/18/08
Quiet Chaos is an apt description for the emotional state of Nanni Moretti's grieving widower Pietro, in a film whose central theme is grief, but that plays out with a mix of humour and acceptance
05/16/09
Latest News for Quiet Chaos
June 25, 2009:
Critics Consensus: Transformers 2 Is Less Than Meets The Eye
This week at the movies, we've got robots in disguise (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, starring Megan Fox and Shia LaBeouf) and a family in disrepair (My Sister's Keeper,... More...
May 25, 2009:
Trailer & Poster review 
More...
May 06, 2008:
Caos Calmo (2008): Berlinale notorieta trailer
More...
What’s Hot On RT
Fresh Links
Featured
History of Disney Animation
MSN Movies offers a little background on the success of Disney Animation.
90 Years of Screen Vampires
TIME takes a look back at the history of vampires on film.
Virtuoso Vistas of Lovely Bones
Techland examines the visual splendor of Peter Jackson's upcoming film.
Recent Headlines as TV Movies
AOL put together a list of 10 recent news items that would be perfect as TV Movies.
The Death of Original Thought
Hollywood.com's C. Robert Cargill explores how remakes and reboots have warped our thinking.
Promos
Follow RT on Twitter
Get the latest Tomatometer updates on upcoming movies!
IGN RSS Feeds