This could easily have been pure melodrama - there's little light, not much gaiety and every scene tightly revolves around the core idea of mother-child love - but remind yourself this is an autobiographical Italian film about a real man who grew up minus a fundamental building block - the truth about his mother's death - and it becomes tolerable melodrama and more than that, an occasionally profound look at a successful war correspondent and newspaper columnist's happiness, success, and faith.
★★★☆☆
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