Movie Review: Mother and Child

A scene from the movie <i>Mother and Child</i>. Photo / Supplied

Rating: 2/5
Verdict: Self-indulgent and self-absorbed

Ponderous and maudlin, this American melodrama revels in the kind of dimwitted sentimentalism at which Hollywood excels. It's worse than soap opera, really; its rhythms are more those of daytime TV because it's the kind of drama in which every scene is intended as a climax, but it never really reaches one.

People for whom adoption has been part of their lives may find it even more offensive than I did (my objections were entirely aesthetic) since it positions its idea of parenting a child to whom you have not given birth as inevitably a crisis, tragedy or disappointment, if not all three at once; the idea that it might be decently motivated or lead to some sort of healthy emotional life doesn't enter the picture until the final, glib few moments. This is drama for people who regard Oprah as a psychotherapist.

The story revolves around three women whose experiences of being either mother or child are emotionally fraught: Karen (Bening) gave up the baby she had at 14 and her life has curdled her into a stew of anger and bitterness; Elizabeth (Watts) is a lawyer whose emotional life is an icy wasteland largely because she doesn't know (though we do) who her mother is; finally Lucy (Washington) is desperate to adopt.

You can tell straight away that their lives will intersect and the nicest thing that can be said about the film is that there is some surprise - or at least contrivance - about the ways in which that happens. A variety of other mother-daughter relationships purport to illuminate the action but the problem is that writer-director Garcia seems incapable of creating characters who speak or act like real people.

Only two moments - a brilliant few seconds from Watts which culminates with the "c" word and another where a mother ticks off her daughter - ring true in the whole self-indulgent and self-absorbed affair.

Cast: Naomi Watts, Annette Bening, Kerry Washington, Jimmy Smits, Samuel L. Jackson
Director: Rodrigo Garcia
Running time: 125 mins
Rating: M, sex scenes, offensive language

- TimeOut