BEFORE: I may end up posting this one late, like maybe on Thursday, but I started watching it on Tuesday, then I had to work Wednesday and VERY early on Thursday morning, so for once I couldn't stay up late writing the review on the day of. The new college year starts with a big staff meeting at the theater, and somebody has to open the theater at 6:30 am and let the caterers in so everyone attending can have coffee and breakfast pastries and wraps. That would be me, but at least once everyone gets seated for the meeting I can have my own breakfast pastries and wraps. Anyway, this counts as. my Wednesday movie even if I don't post until Thursday, then I'll have no movie for Thursday and be back with the next review on Friday, most likely after a nap on Thursday afternoon/evening.
Benny Safdie carries over from "Good Time". This will be his third appearance this year, but not his last, I'm planning one more but it won't be tomorrow's film.
THE PLOT: When a young mother's home birth ends in unfathomable tragedy, she begins a year-long odyssey of mourning that fractures relationships with loved ones in this deeply personal story of a woman learning to live alongside her loss.
AFTER: Ugh, this is another bummer of a film based on personal loss, so really, this would have fit in great right after "The Son", and it even shares its lead actress with that film. See, that's why I don't get too concerned about the paths not taken, because it seems like I eventually get to the movies I initially turn down, anyway. Once a film is on the list, it kind of stays there until I can get to it, and this film came on Netflix in January 2021, so it must have been on the list for three and a half years, I think maybe it and "Promising Young Woman" were added at the same time, so, yeah, it's been a while.
The problem with the birth and the eventual blaming of the midwife for not suggesting medical help sooner seem very specific, and so I'm guessing this is based on real events that happened to someone - and it turns out the screenwriter and the director are a couple, and they did experience a miscarriage. Now, how much of what happened to them ended up in the movie, I have no idea. Did they sue their midwife? Did their marriage (or partnership, whatever) falter because of the death of the baby? Again, these are very personal questions, so who knows, but if you're going to turn your infant's death into a stage-play and then a movie, you'd better be prepared for questions about how much of this really happened this way.
(EDIT: It turns out this movie's screenplay is a combination of the screenwriter's experiences after her miscarriage, combined with the trial of a Hungarian obstetrician named Agnes Gereb, who promoted home deliveries and who, after years of experience, was prosecuted after a difficult birth ended in the death of the baby.)
Sure, you can move the story to involve a Boston couple, but that's all just window-dressing, isn't it? The story is still universal, involving the strain of guilt that's put on a woman after she miscarries, and what effect that then has on the marriage, her relationship with her family members, her job performance, and so on. And I know there's this strong trend for women to have babies at home, in warm loving environments and not cold, impersonal hospitals, but there's something to be said for hospitals, because it turns out there are a lot of doctors there. I recently had a colonoscopy (it's not the same, I know) but my doctor referred me to a specialist, who did NOT want to perform the colonoscopy at his practice, and instead referred me to a hospital in Manhattan that does a couple dozen every day? Why? He took one look at me and asked me if I had sleep apnea, breathing problems, etc. and I don't, but he still thought that a hospital would be safer in case I had any trouble with the anesthesia, in other words, he didn't want to be held accountable if something went wrong. Fine, I'll go to the hospital, but no WAY do I go back to that doctor for a follow-up, because he didn't want to do the work in the first place. My point is, hospitals are sometimes the safest places to be.
After the ambulance arrives too late - and I hate to victim-blame here, but if the midwife is partially responsible than so is the couple who insisted on a home birth - Martha is depressed, of course, and finds it difficult to return to her normal routine, or even go through the process of picking out an urn or a headstone, and even insists that her baby's body be donated to science, maybe in hopes of figuring out what went wrong. But this puts her in conflict with her husband and her mother, who really want to bury the body and have a funeral because they feel it's the right thing to do.
Sean, Martha's husband, goes through depression also, and relapses on drugs after being sober for seven years, and then starts having sex with his wife's cousin, who also happens to be a lawyer advising him on their lawsuit against the midwife. (NP: Sean only says to the lawyer, "I guess we're related, only he doesn't say how, so I was very confused here - was he having sex with his wife's sister, or cousin, or his own cousin, or his third cousin once removed on his father's side, because that kind of makes a difference...). He also returns the minivan that Martha's mother bought for them, which makes sense, but protests when his wife starts dismantling the crib in what would have been the baby's room.
Everything comes out in a family gathering where Ellen Burstyn (as Martha's mother) reminds us that she's a powerful actress, yet she didn't get an Oscar nomination for this film, but I think she probably should have. Vanessa Kirby instead got a nomination for playing Martha, but honestly I just don't think she had anything to really do here except act depressed as her life falls apart - maybe that 24-minute opening scene of the home birth was considered ground-breaking somehow, but I just don't get it. The effects of grief and trauma can be difficult to display in a movie, and this kind of proves that point. Mostly it's just a bummer here watching a marriage fall apart because the two people just can't seem to get on the same page while processing their grief in different and often destructive ways. But I guess maybe that's the point?
Anyway, I'm kind of burned out on grief films after the set of films I watched two weeks ago, from "Armageddon Time" through "Good Grief". If I hadn't dropped in "Deadpool & Wolverine" and "Next Goal Wins", who knows where I'd be mentally. So I'm searching now for something more upbeat, but who knows if I'll find it anytime soon.
Also starring Vanessa Kirby (last seen in "The Son"), Shia LaBeouf (last seen in "The Company You Keep"), Ellen Burstyn (last seen in "Being Mary Tyler Moore"), Iliza Shlesinger (last seen in "Spenser Confidential"), Sarah Snook (last seen in "An American Pickle"), Molly Parker (last seen in "Peter Pan & Wendy"), Steven McCarthy, Tyrone Benskin (last seen in "Moonfall"), Frank Schorpion (ditto), Harry Standjofski (ditto), Jimmie Falls, Domenic Di Rosa, Gayle Garfinkle, Vanessa Smythe (last seen in "Carrie" (2013)), Nick Walker, Sean Tucker (last seen in "Long Shot"), Alain Dahan, Joelle Jeremie, Lyne St-Pierre, Ellie Albertine Haare.
RATING: 4 out of 10 apple seeds (oh, so THAT'S what those were...)
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