Writer-director-actor Nanni Moretti, best known on this side of the Atlantic for his whimsical Dear Diary, has a justified reputation as a maverick in the Italian film industry. His literate, pointed and frequently very funny films have eschewed mainstream conventions and have made him seem like a politically charged (his politics are far left of centre) Italian Woody Allen. Winning the Palme d'Or at last year's Cannes Film Festival guaranteed that The Son's Room would reach a larger worldwide audience than any of Moretti's previous films. It's a shame, then, that it turns out to be the least interesting film he has made to date.

For someone who once used a water polo team's internal squabbling as a metaphor for the divisiveness found within the Italian Communist Party (Palombella Rossa) and then used his own seemingly undiagnosable skin condition to skewer the inadequacies of the Italian medical system (Dear Diary), Moretti's latest film displays neither the ingenuity nor the offbeat point of view characteristic of his earlier work. The Son's Room is an overly earnest, very mainstream look at one middle-class Italian family and the effects felt by all after the accidental death of the son.

Moretti plays Giovanni, a successful, laid-back psychiatrist (we know he's laid-back because he favours loose brown corduroys and bulky green sweaters) whose family seems perfect in every way. Wife Poala is a successful businesswoman, daughter Irene seems to enjoy studying Latin and son Andrea is a quiet, good-natured lad with a penchant for diving. They are a loving family given to jogging together and singing along to the radio while in the car. In fact, one could be forgiven for thinking that they are too good to be true.

Of course, this portrait of blissful domesticity is calculated to exact the maximum amount of audience emotion when the unthinkable happens: son Andrea dies in a diving accident. The subsequent grief felt by all-and the varying ways in which they deal with that grief-serves as the focus of the remainder of the film.

Aided by Giuseppe Lanci's superb, sun-dappled cinematography, Moretti handles some scenes with the sure hand of an artist in control of his material. Giovanni breaking the news to his daughter while she is in the middle of a high school basketball game results in a scene that is both riveting and deeply affecting. But at other times-like when the wise doctor goes through an "If only I could turn back time" phase-the film drifts perilously close to cliché.

In fact, the whole exercise makes you ask the question: Just what is this movie trying to say? From all the evidence on the screen, the film seems to be saying that when you are very close to someone who dies, you grieve. And that people grieve differently. If this is news to you, you'll find the movie deeply satisfying. If not, The Son's Room adds nothing to what you already know.