Would I have given this more stars if I hadn't found myself w tears streaming down my face the other night while watching 'The Best of Youth' aka La meglio gioventù an Italian film directed by Marco Tullio Giordana ?

First curiosity then pathos take over the viewer's response to the characters, to a consideration of family, brotherhood, parenthood, childhood, sanity, caring, empathy and whether it is possible for justice to play a fair part in a topsy turvy world.

Guests on earth examines some of the same themes but in such a different milieux and from a very different narrative perspective .

There are sympathetic psychiatrists and maddening patients in both stories, a juxtaposition of health and infirmity , vigor and frailty, the sane and the insane, the institution or collective and the family or the loner .