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the audience applauded

One of my all time favorites.

Admirable film.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

This movie is a masterpiece of human emotion, thought, and relationships. For me the best moment of the movie was when the Father looked down on his sleeping child on the train to Berlin. At that moment, his heart was lost to the boy whether he wanted it to be or not. The Dad showed much love for his boy through-out the film, and made sure the boy knew it. He gave him many treats and acts of love such as hugs and kisses on his cheeks. A truly moving scene was when he wiped his Sons face and hands with the towel after the boy made a run for it in the hallway. The Father made sure his Son knew who was boss when the remote control scene took place. All police tell parents to stay put when their child is missing so updates can be given to them. Trying to find anybody in a big city, one is not familiar with, is not the best idea. He showed his Son great compassion when he took him to see his love interest, knowing the boy might be made fun of or rebuffed in an unkind way. This shows a wonderful understanding of being a parent, letting your children get hurt emotionally so they can grow emotionally in their lives. Throwing the cane into the sea was a profound act of love and understanding that this one thing to protect his Son from ridicule was all he could do for him on his journey to meet the girl of his dreams without embarrassment. My thoughts on the boy going to live with his Father, it was never going to happen. It was a fantasy of the Father wanting to make everything OK between him and his Son. When the Father broke down and cried, he knew when the boy acted up, that this trip together was all they would have, maybe for a long time. The Father understood his wife could not and probably would not be able to meet the demands of the boys needs and take care of their baby. The Father had to work, so this was the way it had to be. When the boy said I am here with you and you cry, the Father knew when they were together, that is all that counted at that time. There was great love shown by the Father throughout the movie, and it was was a perfect showing of his affection for his Son. Wonderful wonderful film.

Amazing how a simple, straightforward film shot in almost a documentary style can be seen in completely different ways by different people. The Keys to the House is a strangely moving, yet unsentimental tale about how real people react when confronted with both trauma and disability. Some stay and carry the burden. Others run away. We all think we would stay, but how sure are we? Once the decision is made to run, consciously or otherwise, how do we come back? When there is no direct contact, the avoided lessens in personal value; but does what we avoid truly go away? Do we really want it to? The main protagonists in the film are a disabled boy and the father who abandoned him at birth. Many reviews were judgmental of the father's rejection of a disabled child,although this was not a factor in the actual abandonment - both he and the boy's mother were teenagers when she became pregnant. The fact that she died giving birth to his child fed his guilt, imagined or not, that he was to blame for her death. He barely stayed with her mother and sister at the hospital to hear what happened to the baby.That reaction and his continued refusal to try to at least see his son, eventually raised by the mother's sister and her husband, smacks of fear and immaturity rather than cold-hearted rejection. He is introduced to us as the impossibly perfect Kim Rossi Stuart, an actor so beautiful we are immediately disdainful of him - did he leave because the child was not as perfect as he? We are suspicious of his motives in suddenly coming into the boy's life after 15 years although he is not the person to initiate contact. The boy's doctors have suggested that meeting his birth father may help speed effectiveness of the boy's developmental therapy, so he is literally cornered into it by the uncle, who against his wife's wishes arranges to have the father escort the boy to specialized therapy in Germany. It is clear that the uncle does this out of love for the boy, but why does the father agree to do it? In subtle ways, we see he is not without feeling for the boy - he is hesitant to touch him yet devours him with his eyes; as the story progresses, his contact becomes increasingly tactile - as one reviewer said, stroking him almost as if he were a pet.The choice of actors is brilliant for the same reasons another reviewer found unpalatable - in real life, disabled people can come from the most physically "perfect" human specimens - in this case the child's disability was as a result of birth trauma. The father is as emotionally damaged as the son is physically - they both seem to need each other on an almost primal level. It minimizes the intelligence of both the actor (Andrea Rossi)and his character Paolo, the son, not to recognize this. Mood swings and repetition do not negate a functioning heart or mind in Paolo; he is aware of more than we think. The actor Andrea Rossi (is he related to Kim Rossi Stuart?) is brilliant as Paolo; that he is also afflicted with muscular dystrophy makes his performance even more affecting. I reject the review that suggests this disability as the reason we should cheer his acting, however; MUSCULAR dystrophy does not affect the mind (Steven Hawking?) even if the director supposedly fed him lines off-camera, his innate ability (I thought he was ACTING the physical part) is what actually made Paolo believable as a character.As always, Charlotte Rampling is excellent as the mother of another patient in Paolo's hospital. She has taken on her daughter's disability as her life's-work. Yet even she is human and has wished to run away. The difference between the parents is that she continues to do, despite the occasional lapse. Paolo's father has to grow up and come to terms with the reality of the disability as well as his newfound love for his son as a person before they can move on as father and son. That he is willing to continue to try, after failing several times, is his most redeeming factor in the movie.

This film is remarkable for doing what I would have considered completely impossible, namely featuring a young boy who is severely handicapped as the lead actor, and succeeding brilliantly. The boy is Andrea Rossi, and his performance is one of the great cinema performances of the decade. I don't know how this was possible. Even allowing for the obvious fact that the director, Gianni Amelio, is a man of unique sensitivity and even of genius, I do not know how such a handicapped boy could be such a super-star. It is totally astounding. Those of us who have known handicapped people realize how charming they can be in private. But the idea that a boy so seriously handicapped could totally dominate an entire feature film and be so up-front, and project his personality so powerfully, is absolutely incredible. This is some kind of magic hitherto unknown! Andrea Rossi is not only honest and direct, he is a communicator at a major level. He proves what fantastic talents lie buried deep within people suffering from certain handicaps, and which never emerge because no opportunity ever presents itself. Really, there are no words to express the astonishment and delight with which any honest person would greet the experience of this screen performance by a boy who can barely walk, can barely write, and is handicapped in so many ways (I have no idea of what his illness really is) that he could easily be dismissed by the thoughtless as being unable to participate in normal human society or indeed to have any worth or importance as an individual human being. Andrea Rossi has struck a blow for all handicapped people everywhere, by proving beyond any doubt that appearances can be deceptive, and that someone who looks hopelessly handicapped and barely able to communicate can in actuality be highly alert, intelligent, witty, sensitive, creative, innovative, self-deprecating, amusing, and loving. What an amazing fellow Andrea Rossi is! And he was only twelve years old when he made this film! As for the others in the film, there are spectacular performances also by Kim Rossi Stuart as the boy's father, and Charlotte Rampling as the mother of a more severely handicapped girl. The film is so emotional, so powerful, that you will rarely see anything more moving in your lifetime. The direction is perfect. Everything is perfectly judged and perfectly executed. The interviews with Rampling and Rossi Stuart on the DVD are important and should be watched. I had no idea what a profound thinker and intellectual Rampling is until I saw her talking to the camera about the meaning and significance of this film. She should write books on the philosophy of the cinema. But probably her performances are her philosophy, expressed directly, and aimed straight for the gut. How amazing this film is in every way!

Being a special parent of and active in the community of special (aka mentally handicapped) children, this story hit close to home. Especially the way in which it illuminated two very subtle yet extraordinarily important aspects of the behavior and psychology of this child as well as a parent.In the movie, the biological father Gianni is shown to have "given up" the child Paolo to another couple. I would interpret this not so much in a literal way, but more in an allegorical way, since even in real life, due to the trauma and complexity of parenting a special child, parents may "lose touch" with the child, even if the child is in house. It is a huge challenge, especially balancing the child's care with other aspects of life including social, career, health, other siblings of the child etc. All too often, the special child itself becomes only a tiny part of the whole "system" and mind numbing "details" of providing care.The film also brilliantly portrays the resolution ["""potential spoiler***] of the above dilemma thats all too common in special parents' lives. Initially Gianni tries to deal with Paolo in a loving yet ultimately paternalistic way. But this doesn't get him anywhere near his goal of bonding with Paolo. In the end, only when Gianni literally breaks down, and becomes as helpless as a child himself, and lets Paolo comfort him as a father would, does the real bonding between father and son occur on a level playing field.This is an incredibly insightful object lesson, and is so true in the often dark, challenging yet ultimately fulfilling lives of special parents.This movie is a veritable ode to the divine relationship that exists between such parents and their special children.I rate this movie 10/10 due to its authenticity and humanism.PS: Another movie on the same topic, but from a siblings perspective is A Time For Drunken Horses by Bahman Ghobadi.