Playing its theme of parenthood in different keys like a graceful chorale, Mother and Child features a stellar cast interpreting a story by one of America's finest contemporary dramatists.
Annette Bening shines as Karen, a woman grown bitter by habit since she gave up her daughter for adoption years ago. Naomi Watts is her daughter Elizabeth, now a sleek lawyer with a lust for power games. She talks her way into a job at a firm led by Paul (Samuel L. Jackson, playing a rare character who doesn't hold the upper hand). This mother and daughter don't know each other, but their natures seem to fit together. All that's missing is human warmth.
This comes in the form of Kerry Washington as Lucy, a baker longing for a child of her own. Passionate about parenthood to a degree that her husband, Joseph (David Ramsey), questions, she finally decides they must adopt.
Writer-director Rodrigo García is a sophisticated storyteller and a master of the multi-character narrative. Having begun as a cinematographer in the nineties on films including Mi Vida Loca and Four Rooms and working as a writer, director and producer ever since, he has moved effortlessly between the big and small screens, crafting gems of U.S. independent cinema like Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her, then bringing a series such as In Treatment to North American television.
As he unfolds the threads of his story, it's clear they must intersect, but how? The pleasure comes in watching García's characters grow and evolve. When Karen meets Paco (Jimmy Smits, who also appears in Backyard in the Contemporary World Cinema programme this year), his easygoing nature proves a challenge for her usual suspicions. And when Elizabeth discovers she can no longer exploit people and leave as she always did, she reaches out for whatever grounding she can find in her life.
Mother and Child becomes increasingly satisfying as it goes because these characters reveal themselves more and more with each scene. The ending is what screenwriters might call a surprise, but audiences will find a revelation.
Rodrigo García was born in Bogotá, Colombia, and studied at the American Film Institute. He began his career as a cinematographer. He has directed episodes of the television series
Boomtown,
The Sopranos,
Carnivale,
Six Feet Under,
Big Love,
Six Degrees and
In Treatment. He also directed the features
Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her (00),
Ten Tiny Love Stories (01),
Nine Lives (05),
Put it in a Book (07),
Passengers (08) and
Mother and Child (09).