Weekend Movie Forecast: The Hurt Locker Vs. Transformers

Italian drama Quiet Chaos is about a recently widowed father of a 10-year-old girl reeling from the accidental death of his wife, who abandons work and spends his days loafing in a small park near his daughter's school. A.O. Scott at the Times says director Antonello Grimaldi's film "demonstrates that the sad-dad melodrama is a global (or at least a midlevel European art film) phenomenon. If the film is less maudlin and more psychologically astringent than most American specimens, this is partly a matter of Mr. Grimaldi’s restraint and partly thanks to Nanni Moretti’s sharp and unpredictable turn as the dad in question...At its best Quiet Chaos lives up to its name, enmeshing its protagonist in a complicated, lived-in reality that obstructs his attempts to clear his head and organize his feelings."