MOVIE: MOTHER AND CHILD

Imagine a ball of twine all twisted and seized up in a deplorable bundle of knots – so begins the story of Karen, Elizabeth and Lucy in Mother and Child from writer/director Rodrigo García. Forced to give her daughter up for adoption at birth, the now socially inept Karen (Annette Bening) is still dealing with her grief some 40 years later while, unbeknownst to her, her controlling, man-eating daughter Elizabeth (Naomi Watts) wallows in denial on the other side of town. Lucy (Kerry Washington), unable to have children, begins her quest to adopt a child and slowly the knots start to loosen. García’s script is tangled but not unfathomable and ever since he began writing his female characters have always been stronger than his male ones he says, “I write about women…how they love their loved ones and how they drive each other crazy.” As events unfold, Karen warms up with some help from the endearing Paco (Jimmy Smits) and Lucy leans on her mother for extra support. The knots slowly untangle in this intense drama but it’s well scripted and heart-warming to consider that human bonding might be the best remedy of saving each other from ourselves. (NG)