By Scott Martin
Mother and Child, USA / Spain, 2009
Written and Directed by Rodrigo Garcia 
I’m always fascinated by multi-narrative character studies, films that take total strangers and loop them together based on a sole coincidence. Be it an unfortunate turn of events, or something mundane yet fortuitous, we’re all connected; that seems to be the mission statement of films like this. Here, the unfortunate events pile onto each other to become something fortuitous. It’s a film that centers its meditation on adoption, but it isn’t preaching; it’s merely telling a story about it. I appreciate that above most things in filmmakers. Focusing its lenses on three women (Annette Bening, Naomi Watts, and Kerry Washington), Mother and Child is the cure for the common Lifetime movie. It’s melodramatic, at times, but I’ve always considered melodrama to be a symptom of a bigger ailment, not the ailment itself. The events in this film are melodramatic, so how could the surrounding elements not be? It wouldn’t flow as a film, and it’s the ebb and flow of Rodrigo Garcia’s films that make them memorable. What I’ve always taken from his work, even if unaffected by his stories, is that he has excellent control over his atmosphere. Read More
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