Mother and Child Reviews

(MU) Choral film without Altman or Paul Thomas Anderson talent; but good actors (Bening, Jackson and Watts), some elegant constraint and elipsis...

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this flick but since there was a nice cast, I thought I should check it out. Eventually, even though Roger Ebert was really enthusiast, even though I myself enjoyed many things about this flick, I still ended up with some mixed feelings. Indeed, it deals with 3 stories, all about women whose lives have been influenced by the adoption process. The first issue is that two of those stories were clearly linked whereas the last one (dealing with Kerry Washington) didn’t have anything to do with the rest until the very end when they finally linked everything together. As a result, the whole thing felt really contrived and I wish they kept it more anchored in reality like the rest of the movie. Furthermore, I thought that Karen (very well portrayed by Annette Bening) changed too much between the beginning and the end. I mean, she started out as a really messed up woman and it was quite understandable considering what she went through but, at the end of the movie, she became someone completely different. I think it would have worked better if she changed just a little bit, that she had learned to accept her past and find some peace but still remained messed up because, after all, that’s who she is. Still, it remains a solid drama above all thanks to the decent directing and a very good cast (Annette Bening, Naomi Watts, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, David Morse, Amy Brenneman). I was especially really impressed by Annette Bening and Naomi Watts who both did a great job but the rest of the cast was really good as well. To conclude, even though I thought that the story was too convoluted, it still is a very well made drama and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

The title is appropriate in more than just one sense. MOTHER AND CHILD is the latest film from Rodrigo Garcia, who made the equally wonderful and nuanced NINE LIVES back in 2005. MOTHER AND CHILD consists of three interconnected stories. Two of them are merely decent, but the third one is so great that it elevates this film into being more than just good, mostly thanks to a magnificent, devastating performance from Naomi Watts, who I continue to believe is today's best working actress.

The film opens with a 14-year-old girl who decides to have sex with her boyfriend, and we immediately find out that she got pregnant and gave birth to a girl. We move ahead 37 years in time. Now 51, Karen (Annette Bening) clearly lives a melancholy life, as she thinks about the baby that she gave away when she was a teenager and wonders what became of her. Karen lives with her mother, a very old woman who seems to be in a constantly bitter state. As we cut into one of the film's other storylines, we discover that the baby that was given away is the now 37-year-old Elizabeth (Naomi Watts), who grew up as an adopted child but hardly had any help from anyone, and she was basically all by herself at 17. She worked extremely hard, and has now become an ultra-successful, extremely qualified attorney. One of the most fascinating moments in MOTHER AND CHILD takes place when we first meet Elizabeth during her job interview with the head of a law firm, Paul (Samuel L. Jackson). Elizabeth informs Paul that she's done what she's had to do to get ahead, that she prefers to work alone and that she doesn't mind having either a man or a woman as a boss, but that she "prefers reporting to a man." Of course, as far as Paul is concerned, this proves to be very little of a problem, as the relationship between these two goes beyond the professional realm. Some of the best scenes of MOTHER AND CHILD feature the amount of control Elizabeth has over her lonely life, as she dwells in an apartment by herself, and gets miffed when her over-perky neighbors come ring her doorbell to welcome her to the building. The scene in which Elizabeth introduces Paul to her neighbors is hilarious and has an amazing punchline. Finally, there's the third story, which features the married couple, Lucy (Kerry Washington) and Joseph (David Ramsey), who are desperately trying to adopt a child. The connection between this last storyline and the first two doesn't emerge until the film's final act, so I won't spoil it here.

The storyline involving Karen't strife over having abandoned her baby at such a young age is pretty solid, especially because Annette Bening is so well-connected to her character and is able to emote so adeptly. One of the most important aspects of Karen's story is her blossoming relationship with co-worker Paco (Jimmy Smits). My only problem with this storyline is that there is a sudden, jarring transition from a particularly sad scene (in which several confessions are made) to a happy wedding, and it definitely feels like there needed to be something in between to connect these two events. The romantic aspect of Karen's storyline doesn't feel 100% genuine, and there is a scene shortly after the wedding in which Paco's daughter shows up to spew some over-sentimental lines that feel misplaced (the script even has this character say a line that another character in the film has already said, and it feels contrived). As for the story of Lucy and Joseph, there aren't any nit-picks to be had. The performances are good, the character arcs are handled nicely, and there's even some good sense of humor.

But what really makes MOTHER AND CHILD a very good film is Elizabeth's dark, unabashedly sexual, and wonderfully melancholy story. There's a constant sense that, as much as she has been incredibly successful on a professional level, the unorthodox way in which she was raised has turned her into a truly disturbed person, who doesn't know how to even realize that she wants somebody to love her. There's a truly eerie moment in which Elizabeth has a sudden, knee-jerk reaction while standing in front of the receptionist's desk at a doctor's office. Later in the film, Elizabeth connects with a blind young girl who likes to sit on the building rooftop. Here, I watched fearfully, as I imagined we would descend into cliche, sentimental territory... but it doesn't happen. When the blind girl tells Elizabeth "You can count on me," we imagine it means that Elizabeth will eventually TAKE the opportunity to count on her, but the actual outcome is far from what we expect. The conclusion of Elizabeth's story is shocking and truly devastating. It's all thanks to Watts' unbelievable skill. She's shown how fearless she is in the past, but she continues proving it in MOTHER AND CHILD. Her supremely raw performance as Elizabeth alone makes this film more than worth watching. In fact...

**SPOILERS BELOW**

Naomi Watts' performance in MOTHER AND CHILD is so powerful that something happened to me that hasn't happened to me in a long time while watching a film. I was emotionally affected by a character's death, almost as if I truly felt that someone I knew and appreciated in real life had passed away. It might seem ridiculous, but it's precisely because of how uncompromising Watts is at creating such a delightfully flawed, interesting character that I felt that way. MOTHER AND CHILD may have been a merely decent film without her, but thanks to her performance, it's an above-average dramatic piece.