Keswick Film Club - Mother and Child

Synopsis

Perhaps because adoption juxtaposes feelings of love and loss, writer-director Rodrigo García centres his bittersweet, superbly crafted Mother and Child on three women affected by adoption.

Almost forty years ago, a young girl of fourteen gets pregnant, and gives her baby up for adoption. Fast-forwarding to the present, we meet three very different women, struggling to maintain control of their lives. There's Elizabeth, (Naomi Watts) a smart and successful lawyer who uses her body to her advantage. Karen, (Annette Benning) 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 fourteen and has never got over it - her bitterness inspiring her to lash out at everyone around her. Finally, Lucy (Kerry Washington) is a woman who has failed to conceive with her husband, who turns to adoption to make the family she desires.

This mixture of loss and joy forces you to examine the ―what ifs' of the characters' lives. García shows remarkable control of the tone, holding it across three different stories and through the characters' individual transformations that lead them to ostensibly happier places.