Full disclosure: I love Annette Bening. In this film, my love is warranted. She is amazing. Here we have a couple of parallel stories all surrounding mother/daughter relationships and adoption. Bening plays a woman who gave her child up for adoption thirty something years ago when she was a teen mother. For her entire life she has agonized over this action of giving her child away, having to live daily with the outcome as well as with her own mother who was influential in the decision. We also see the story of Naomi Watts and her life path which is influence by not having any family. Her decisions seem to lie on the border between high self confidence and self destruction. Finally, we follow the path of a young couple who is trying to adopt. They work through, to varying degrees of success, why they want to adopt and how it is impacting their individuality, their families, and their marriage. Throughout, the writing is true. Neither over dramatic nor apathetic, each character encounters real emotional barriers and is able to display the gravity of those barriers in their life. Written and directed by Rodrigo Garcia (who also wrote several episodes of In Treatment and Six Feet Under both of which I loved), Mother and Child is one of the best films I have seen this year.
5 stars (out of 5)
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