Review of Mother and Child (2009) by Greg R — 15 Jan 2011

Samuel L. Jackson may be the busiest man in Hollywood, but practice makes perfect. Jackson has played nearly every character type in the pantheon of acting. In Mother and Child he gives perhaps his best performance.

Its subtle, its fatherly, its rational and its spot on perfect. With a title like Mother and Child it may be odd that I start out by mentioning Jackson. All of this wonderful cast (the casting Director is genius) are equally brilliant.

Naomi Watts, Annette Benning, Kerry Washington, Eileen Ryan and Jimmy Smits round out the well known cast members and the second line actors complete the story line so effectively. Without giving up the entire, long spanning and multi-layered plot this film asks a lot of questions and gives multiple answers.

All of these answers lie within our imagination at films end. Its not completely neat and tidy but its consummately fulfilling. How this film made it through the 2009 Awards ceremonies without nominations is a mystery.

Jackson and Watts did win Best Supporting actor and actress via the Independent Spirit Awards and that in itself is perhaps as good as an Oscar in this day and age of such brilliantly made Independent Films.

This movie gives differing perspectives without being preachy and the parallel plot lines that so often does not work well, ties together cohesively in the end. I watch a lot of Independent films, and films in general and this was most definitely one of my top 5 films of 2009.