Mother and Child, 2009

Mother and Child, 2009
Director: Rodrigo Garcia
Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Annette Bening, Naomi Watts, Eileen Ryan


Stage: Movie Under the stars on the Ljubljana Castle


Mother and Child in short: Almost forty years ago, a young girl of 14 has sex, gets pregnant, and gives her baby up for adoption. Fast-forwarding to the present day, we meet three very different women, each of whom struggles to maintain control of their lives. There's Elizabeth (Naomi Watts), a smart and successful lawyer who uses her body to her advantage. Any time she feels that she doesn't have the upper hand, and cannot control the situation, she uses her sex appeal - whether that be starting a romance with her boss (Samuel L. Jackson) when she suspects he is trying to start one himself, or finding some way to control her overly friendly neighbor and husband (Carla Gallo and Marc Blucas). Karen (Annette Bening), meanwhile, is a bitter health care professional who obviously has a lot of heart but never shows it. She gave up a daughter at the age of 14 (wonderfully shown rather than told, she is the young girl and mother of Elizabeth), and has never gotten over it - her bitterness inspiring her to lash out at everyone around her - even the gentle man at work who is undeniably drawn to her (Jimmy Smits). Finally, Lucy (Kerry Washington) is a woman who has failed to conceive with her husband, so she turns to adoption to make the family she desires.



Preps: The enormous amount of leading stars in the movie industry. The trailer gives me shivers, I need to see this. It ought to be good. Premiere right on our castle. And a good girlfriend to accompany me if it is too much to handle.


Reality:
One of the better ones I have seen this year. The coincidence root (or dare I say the luck path in this case) that the leading protagonists have to face during solving vital life problems, is astounding.
I am deeply impressed by the depth of this movie, as it touches me greatly in so many ways. Maybe in this sense, not really a movie to recommend to male public, because it faces more on the woman perspective of the problems of pregnancy, adoption, forgiveness, and less on the male perspective of the same case.

Samuel L. Jackson plays one of the vital roles in the movie, the same goes for Naomi Watts and Annette Benning with Eileen Ryan. Each role is a very dominant one and also brilliantly played. Actually it's hard to really say who is the leading act in male or female perspective, because you follow the story of three separate families (or wannabe families) that in the end collide somehow together. By the end, the soul of the viewer should be burdened with dramatic moments and filled with questions we never seem to be asking ourselves, because they seem to influence many quarrels or many disorders in the normal life. The movie poses some solutions to these problems and issues that might arise from solving everything.

The thing you will like about the movie is simply that it's not simple to understand, not edible at all and above all, makes you think about everything afterwards. And this is precisely what a good drama should make you do after seeing it.


My personal rating: 9,0 (a strong recommendation. However, non - dramatic souls need to prepare for this a bit in advance, because it's a hard two hours, that in my case, flew by as a moment.)


Mother and Child on IMDB

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