Pieces of a Woman

A couple in Boston decide on a home birth. The film opens with it, running twenty-four minutes in one unbroken take. Kornél Mundruczó built that sequence as a single shot deliberately. Cinematographer Benjamin Loeb used a gimbal-mounted camera to produce a floating movement meant to suggest the baby's point of view. It was shot six times across two days, and the fourth take was chosen because it felt more alive than the technically cleaner ones that followed. Mundruczó and screenwriter Kata Wéber first wrote it as a stage play, having been through a miscarriage themselves. Wéber found a scene in her notebook where a mother and daughter argue about child loss, and Mundruczó pushed her to grow it into a family drama. Vanessa Kirby won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at Venice, followed by Academy Award, BAFTA, SAG, Critics' Choice and Golden Globe nominations. Netflix bought worldwide rights at Toronto in September 2020. It opened in cinemas on 30 December 2020 and streamed from 7 January 2021. After FKA Twigs' allegations against Shia LaBeouf in late 2020, Netflix removed him from the awards campaign, saying it wanted to keep the focus on the film. Who it is for: viewers who want grief handled as a process, and anyone interested in technically difficult shooting. Who it is not for: anyone who cannot take the opening. For those twenty-four minutes the film gives the audience nowhere to go.