Review of Mother and Child (2009) by Manny C — 15 Dec 2010

Mother and Child is full of fantastic performances from Annette Bening (already the Oscar frontrunner for The Kids Are All Right) and Naomi Watts, who gives this strong drama its life and vitality. Written and directed by Rodrigo Garcia Mother and Child is smartly made and wonderfully acted. Bening is Karen, a physical therapist who gave up her daughter for adoption after giving birth at 14. Years later she still is plagued by guilt. Karen is unable to even open up to anyone, even her compassionate co-worker Paco (Jimmy Smits) who does his best to get close to her. Watts is Elizabeth, Karen's daughter who has also lived a life of bitterness. The two have never met. Elizabeth is a lawyer that feels spurned by life, and desires to have complete control of her life. She eventually settles into an affair with Paul (Samuel L. Jackson, doing his best acting in years), her boss, and a widower, but everything is on her terms.

Then Elizabeth becomes pregnant, and Garcia brings a third woman to the mix, Lucy (the luminous Kerry Washington), a married woman with no children who is fixated in the adoption market. The three stories of these three woman make up the whole of Mother and Child and marvelously infuses them with genuine feeling. Garcia, best known for his work on HBO's In Treatment, takes his sweet time to build character and the things that matter. Mother and Child is an emotional wallop.