Mother and Child (2009)

This movie deals with adoption and a mother's love through three intertwined stories.Annette Benning plays a woman who as a young girl gives her child up for adoption. Throughout her adult life, she is bitter, and unable to love and be loved. She meets Jimmy Smits and she slowly starts to melt and tries to find the daughter she has given up.Naomi Watts is a bitter, driven, self absorbed woman who is unable to form relationships too. She knows she was adopted and it is not until she is ready to have her own baby does she want to find the woman who gave her up. Samuel L. Jackson plays her boss and lover, and he gives a subtle, but strong performance. The last story deals with Kerry Washington who is unable to conceive with her husband and are in the midst of an adoption with a young girl. In the middle of all this, her husband decides he can't go through with it and basically she becomes a single mother.I thought the acting was excellent and you really felt the emotions of each character. I have seen the movie twice and cried twice. I can't recommend this movie enough especially if you are a mother. There is sadness, but the movie ends on a somewhat happy note as each woman accepts her past.

The movie, Mother & Child, is about three women, Lucy, Elizabeth, and Karen, who's stories have to do with being a mother in some way. The film follows the three women and their challenges with adoption and pregnancy. Karen is played by Annette Bening. Karen is a 50- year old who is struggling over giving up her child at the age of 14. She seems to be full of hate and struggles accepting people into her life. Elizabeth is the daughter Karen, whom she gave up at 14, and has never met. Elizabeth is played by Naomi Watts. She is a persistent, controlling, carefree lawyer who just wants to do her own thing. She has a sexual relationship with her boss where she gets pregnant. While giving birth she dies, and her child is left for adoption. Lucy is played by Kerry Washington. She and her husband have been trying for a baby for four years when they decide on adoption. When her husband backs out and leaves her, she decides to continue with the adoption. This scene is very similar to the movie Juno (Reitman, J.) . Where the father is not ready to adopt but the mother is. Lucy still wants to adopt but is heartbroken when the mother backs out. A new baby girl comes up and Lucy adopts her, the baby that Elizabeth has left behind. Karen finds peace in the end with her husband, but becoming a grandmother-figure to Lucy's child, her biological granddaughter. The theme of the film is about a mother's love. The quote used at the end of the movie and the beginning is, "it's the time spent together that counts, not blood" (Garcia, R.). This is true to the film because in the end, all three women dealt with the adoption process and loving a child that is not there, or giving up a child that is their own and still loving it. Lucy struggled when she adopted her new baby. She said that she cannot love her because she is not hers. She felt that someone just handed her a baby and she was not connected. When Lucy's mother stepped in to help her, she told her to step up because she is that child's mother. Lucy learned to love the child as if it were her own. Karen struggled her whole life with giving her child up for adoption; she felt that the world hated her for giving up her baby. She wrote to her daughter every day, and dreamed about her every night. Once she came to terms that what she did nearly 40 years ago was right for her baby, she began to feel love again. We saw her grow as a person.The angle of the camera was excellent. I felt that each shop captured the emotions the characters where feeling. The camera was not just capturing the scene but the expressions and the way the characters felt. There were not significant lighting effects I noticed except for a few. When Karen sleeps with her ex-boyfriend, whom she had the child with; the lighting and scene became blurry; almost as signifying that she should forget the past because it is all a blur from years ago. The producers did an excellent job at connecting the story lines together and becoming one. Although it started out as three separate women struggling separate lives, in the end they were all connected by the love of adoption and being a mother. References Boggs, J. & Petrie, J. (2008). The art of watching films. New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Garcia, R. (Director). (2009). Mother and Child (Motion Picture). Reitman, J. (Director). (2007). Juno (Motion Picture).

There is some excellent acting and very realistic dialog from this interesting and involving movie about mothers and daughters and adoption. The dividing lines between race and blood ties are explored here. This is an intense and human drama.Annette Benning delivers a great performance. She really got a bitter caustic expression perfectly. It is interesting to see the lovely Naomi Watts playing a damaged character.After all the depressing things earlier I wish Naomi's character had lived and there could have been a reunion between mother and daughter.Overall worth a watch for the great performances but feels a bit sad.

Yes the actors are great and I like the emotions in their faces. They are superb in their acting and blah blah blahThe true question is not if the actors are good, the question is why in the name of Earth, were all these good actors/actresses in this movie with such a horrendous theme.Yes, for those who haven's seen the movie…please don't, the theme of the movie is bad, really – really bad.The movie is a ride into the idea that, 'Do not Adopt and do not give for adoption children, if you do, the child and you, will be destroyed forever and ever…oh and adoption is not natural so…DON'T DO IT! Just don't!'Cripes sake! Keep away from this kind of movies…THEY are the devil!