Review of Mary and Martha (2013) by Gwen H — 29 Feb 2016

For this film, one needs to look at the overall effect rather than just story and dialogue. You don't even need to watch the first half of the film, for Mary's character and her obsession with her son is so cliché. For the first half of the film, Mary (Hillary Swank) comes off more like an automaton super-mom than a flesh and blood human. The intent here is that we've got a person who's so obsessed with getting it right because of the parental neglect growing up (yes, she even blames her father for her son's death. That bad!) that she goes overboard in rearing her son and interacting with him. She tries too hard, and ends up coming across forced and opaque. So maybe the nature of Mary's character really is just spot on, albeit plastic and stoic.

What this film really points up is the fact that many in the western world live their lives like royalty while the other 80-90% suffers and suffers dearly. The point here, especially for Americans, is that we may best want to look at what's happening to the rest of the world before we indulge in our little worlds too freely, too often (the U.S. is 6% of the world's population yet has more than half the world's wealth). Do we with all that we have, have a responsibility to reach out and help others? To reach out across continents even?

This appears to be the message of the film. Let's get out of our tiny worlds, our safe worlds, and look at what is going on elsewhere, or we may just pay dearly for our negligence. It is in the final scene where this point is made obvious. As Mary and Martha appear before Congress, the focus for the decision makers is mere numbers not individual lives, Martha, who guaranteed that she would not speak at the hearing, can't keep quite at one point. Her purpose as a mom, a mom of millions comes to fruition as she begins to show seemingly endless photos of children who have died from malaria. My only qualm with the film is that it didn't give more details in the epilogue about the particulars of the horrors of all the children who have died.