NINE GOOD TEETH

Perhaps what is most remarkable about this documentary is director Alex Halpern’s insistence on ferreting out the most painful aspects of his family mythology in an irreverent, uncompromising fashion. In so doing, the film reveals many of the common truths hidden away in personal and communal histories as well as unexpected occurrences – late night visits by Jack Kerouac, illicit love affairs and the occasional murder. The film unfolds through the stories of Halpern’s 102- year-old Italian-American grandmother, Mary Mirabito Livornese Cavaliere. In an intimate and often hilarious portrait, Mary, a fiercely independent woman, dispenses homespun wisdom in a series of unflinching conversations with her persistent and equally outspoken grandson. As she divulges family secrets and rivalries, Mary confronts her own mortality with candor and courage, while remaining the rock on which the rest of the family relies.