Ritesh Mehta

It works if you are really paying attention to the pageturner storytelling and have the spatial intelligence to proactively connect plants to payoffs.

The film runs on an engine at the altar of memory, itself a facile idea since prolific writers who produce feted work don’t wholly rely on retroactive synthesis. The film is then only memorable in some sequences. Magical, it is not.

The film’s honesty, whether loquacious or laconic, sears even more in the absence of a score. Its observational ethos is remarkable given that it is quasi-autobiographical.

The President’s Cake is a case of relatively modest filmmaking that becomes rich because archetype and characterization coordinate the story world.

Matarrese’s reverence for Bini is balanced, matter-of-fact, perhaps a tad bemused. The Italian director, also the main camera operator, is interested as much if not more in magnifying the patients and capturing the range of their emotions — their silent traumas and repressed frustrations, corner smiles and qualified satisfactions.

Unfortunately, the film never transcends its tone of ever-present and palpable danger to become a more satisfying character piece.

Any weaknesses lie more in the slightly tired general themes Ma explores. The Mother and the Bear doesn’t bring a lot of new material to the familiar narrative of parents becoming enlightened towards their child’s sexuality.