Mother and Child review

Taking a slight detour from the usual summer fair is "Mother and Child", a film that hit Sundance earlier this year and was picked up by the king of picking up great smaller works Sony Pictures Classic. The film is basically three stories that could equally warrant three films about three sets of women; all involving either the children they've had, don't want to have or desperately want to have. Annette Benning plays Karen, a physical therapist who lives a bitter life taking care of her dying mother. She has dreams of the child she gave away at birth and it seems that it has had a strongly profound effect on the rest of her life. She cannot get close to anyone and demands far too much from anyone else thus making it where no one wants to get close to her. Kerry Washington's Lucy character cannot get pregnant and with her husband they attempt to adopt. However the girl giving her baby up has turned down several couples before them and insists on knowing as much as possible at their life, but mainly Lucy's. Finally there's Elizabeth played by Naomi Watts. Elizabeth lives alone, is a workaholic lawyer and very good at it and is great and seeing what she wants and taking it. Which is a nice way of saying if she wants to bang you and you want to bang her... then it's going down. Her independence in work, life and sexuality was great until... well you know.

Each woman in this film shines brightly and performs at their best. Not a moment passed where I wasn't convinced by these characters. It's a highly emotional and dramatic film, but still with a nice amount of human realism like humor. Nothing to make you laugh out loud, but the type of human comedy that happens everyday. Lucy (who gets a slightly less screen time than the other woman) is the kind of woman you hear and read about from time to time. The one whom you question if she's ready to be a mother just because she says she is. The relationship between her and her husband is also something of note as it seems like from the first time we see them together he doesn't appear happy. Her mother (played perfectly by S. Epatha Merkerson) has a lot of love and concern for the situation at hand, but Lucy rarely seems willing to accept it. Some of their conversations are the most difficult things to watch in the film, possibly because you start picking a side and you constantly have this feeling of dread surrounding them.

Karen is just a sad person all around. As the story progress you begin to understand that much of her grief is caused by herself. When that change occurs in her (which involves meeting Paco, a nice co-worker played my Jimmy Smitts) it's refreshing and wonderful to see unfold. Elizabeth's story on the other hand could get as difficult to watch as Lucy's at times. Her boss (played by Samuel L. Jackson) and her begin a slight romance that appears to be a simply fling. He's an intelligent and caring man, not sex crazed or wanting to get with everything that moves as a film like 'Sex and the City' would portray him as. Later when she learns she's pregnant we see the different degrees of her come out. Elizabeth can be calm and professional, but also hot headed. Watts plays it all off perfectly and takes a character that could've simply felt conniving and foolish and makes her real. Hell all these ladies pretty much do.

On the surface none of them seem like nice people, but writer-director Rodrigo Garcia ends up displaying fantastically the ability for change. They are human and weak and often the weakest of people need something to pull themselves up. I'm not saying "Mother and Child" is all tears or all smiles by the end, but it's real. Executive produced by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (writer-director of 'Babel' and 'Amores Perros') means that there is some of his way of connected storytelling here, however not quite as strong as in his own pictures. That said "Mother and Child" is still a great film that's packed with emotional and bold performances; and is a film that shouldn't be missed.