Mother and Child

Mother and Child (Naomi Watts, Annette Bening, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, David Morse, Jimmy Smits, S. Epatha Merkerson) – My wife, Julie, contends that “little” independent films aiming for Oscar accolades are generally depressing movies.  Mother and Child fits that mold but provides some hope, too.  Writer/Director Rodrigo Garcia attracts and all-star cast to tell three intersecting stories about abandonment.  Annette Bening plays Karen, a 50-year-old woman caring for her dying mother. Caustic, angry, and troubled, Karen is a physical therapist who pushes people away.  Essentially, her personality is shaped by her decision to put her daughter up for adoption when Karen was just 14 years old.  Naomi Watts plays Elizabeth, a perfectly manipulative, well-educated lawyer who jumps from city-to-city and bed-to-bed, never getting close to anyone.  On her own since age 17, when she goes across the border to get her tubes tied, she is not only a loner but also she is also clearly Karen’s daughter.  Garcia’s story languished on his computer for nearly five years while he wrote this story, realizing that what he had wasn’t enough.  His breakthrough came in creating a third story about Lucy, a seemingly successful professional woman (she owns a bakery) with a perfect marriage who desperately wants a child she cannot conceive herself.  The couple seeks to adopt, interacts with a woman who will agree to the adoption, and then lives through the pain of the woman changing her mind.  As in so many intersecting movies, the stories bounce around among the principals (and the incredible supporting cast, including Jimmy Smits as Karen’s co-worker; Samuel L. Jackson as Elizabeth’s boss and lover; and S. Epatha Merkerson as Lucy’s mother) and their stories.  As we see these people sink and rise, we both gain greater understanding and know that the inevitable denouement is coming.  When it comes, it is both jolting and satisfying.  We should have seen it coming since Garcia needed the third story to make his film complete.  Mother and Child is a beautifully acted human drama with a strong script and deft touch.  It could never have been commercially successful but it might garner the Oscar recognition it seems to seek.