With a title as homely as this, you might expect a midday movie about the indefinable bond between a mother and her child. But what you get is something much more amazing.
Mother and Child begins with a montage of a young mother who gives up her child for adoption, before cutting to Karen (Annette Bening), now an uptight and difficult nurse, looking after her dying mother, and the object of Paco’s (Jimmy Smits) affections.
Elizabeth (Naomi Watts), Karen’s daughter, is a high-plains drifter of the legal variety who is taking up her fourth job in different states in 10 years to work for Paul (Samuel L Jackson). She is also measured and controlling in her actions and words. Lucy (Kerry Washington) and her husband Joseph (David Ramsey) want to adopt a child, and Lucy’s anxiety to be a mother is dominating her. And as their fates unfold, their stories slowly come together.
While the movie is about that unbreakable bond, it is examined through the prism of adoption. It looks at the impacts and issues of abandonment on both parties, how it translates to birthing mothers and the people around them.
It is also about the importance of time people need to spend together and how much time we waste looking for ourselves instead of each other. “Time you spend together is stronger than blood,” Paco’s daughter tells us.
The performances of Bening and Watts are sublime. The dialogue is stilted and sparse, yet they say so much with just a turn of their head or the look in their eyes. Some of their best acting involves no dialogue.
Bening and Watts are playing awkward people, scarred by their past, who grow as their lives unfold and they inhabit their characters so deeply, they make this magically moving material. Kerry Washington is unerringly good as the perfectionist mother-to-be. This is acting of the highest order and some of the best you will ever see.
It is heartening to see the male characters (played by Samuel L Jackson and Jimmy Smits) play their roles with complexity and sensitivity. The love scene between Samuel L Jackson and Watts is as awkward, passionless and tender as you will ever see.
There are no stereotypes here. Every support is played with strength and conviction and writer-director Rodrigo Garcia has drawn out some amazing performances from all of them. Shareeka Epps as Ray, the birthing mother, is so strong as a young mother, she will soon star on her own.
This is a film that should deliver higher rewards and awards for all concerned. While the ending may be sentimental, by then you will be lost in the characters’ embrace and happy to see their lives resolved, despite some of the bitter twists on offer.
It’s not often a movie can produce an experience as moving as this, but it is what you get when combining an under-written script, strong direction and beautiful acting and to achieve that is an art. This film is as close to it as you will get.
Mother and Child is in cinemas now.
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