Mother and Child

Three women: Karen, who gave up the daughter she bore at fourteen; Elizabeth, that daughter, a lawyer who attaches herself to nobody; and Lucy, who cannot have children and wants to adopt. The three stories run in parallel and their intersections appear towards the end. The film is not interested in the adoption process. It is interested in a decision that lasts fifty years: Karen has built her whole life around that day, and Elizabeth has turned having been given away into a method of keeping everyone at a distance. The film softens neither of them. The form is calm and actor-led: long scenes, interiors, offices. Emotional eruptions are few and short. Rodrigo García wrote and directed. His films are almost always built on women characters, and this is no exception. Alejandro González Iñárritu is among the producers. Annette Bening plays Karen, Naomi Watts Elizabeth and Kerry Washington Lucy, with Samuel L. Jackson and Jimmy Smits in the cast. Who it is for: viewers who like actor-driven American drama and parallel narratives. Who it is not for: anyone troubled by coincidence. The way the three lines converge is too neat and the ending may feel forced.