Rating: R
Runtime: 2 hours, 6 minutes
Director: Kornél Mundruczó
Quick Impressions:
Yesterday afternoon my husband and I said in enthusiastic unison, “Tonight we’ll watch,” and then I finished, “One Night in Miami,” and he said, “Pieces of a Woman.” We blinked at each other in confusion. Then he asked, “What’s One Night in Miami?” And I exclaimed, “Pieces of a Woman is out?!?”
I thought Pieces of a Woman would never come out. For months and months, everybody who follows movies has been raving about it all over the internet. There was universal praise for Vanessa Kirby’s performance since she won Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival. But for the longest time it didn’t even have a distributor. I thought I’d read it would be out in February. But apparently Netflix bought it, and it’s streaming now.
The film focuses on a labor gone wrong (resulting in the baby’s death) and how this awful reality affects the parents. It sounded like harrowing material, so we elected to watch it now (while I was in a reasonably good mood) and save Regina King’s directorial debut One Night in Miami (which sounds like a lot more fun) for next week.
I was quite eager to see Vanessa Kirby’s much lauded performance, especially because we just watched Viola Davis in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom last week. Now that I’ve seen both potential Best Actress nominees, I’d say that Davis does more with less. Kirby is excellent, yes. Initially I wrote that I was more impressed by Davis, but that’s not strictly true. I was already impressed with Viola Davis, so what she did as Ma Rainey didn’t make me reevaluate my opinion of her in any way. But if I personally were handing out Oscars and had to choose between only the two of them, I’d give the award to Davis. I would also award Best Supporting Actress to Ellen Burstyn. I found her performance (and her character) the most compelling (and complete) in the film. (That said, I really did enjoy Amanda Seyfried in Mank. Dilemmas like this make me relieved not to be an Academy member with a vote.)
The Good:
Initially, I thought that this film was about a stillbirth. But the baby is technically born alive and then dies very quickly (which, frankly, is more puzzling). I know that’s a light spoiler, but it’s also a trigger warning. I know multiple people who have lost their babies late in pregnancy or during delivery. If you’re one of them, you might not want to watch this film (or read a review that mentions the subject constantly).
The film’s first thirty minutes or so are by far its most compelling. Before even seeing the movie’s title, we get to watch a home birth in real time. It’s pretty gripping stuff. Every second counts.
Then after the baby dies, we lose the urgency. We get huge time jumps, disjointed conversations, failures to connect. And Kirby’s character, Martha, spends a lot of her day aimlessly wandering around–because it doesn’t matter now, does it? There’s no reason for hyper-focus and careful execution. There’s no sense of urgency or of purpose. The baby is dead. For nine months, Martha has been headed toward motherhood, and now she’s simply adrift.
I remember vividly when I mysteriously went into a labor that no one could stop at 25 weeks. An ultrasound confirmed that my baby was blissfully alive and extremely active. The realization that I could not keep her safe in the womb made my soul hurt, crushed with dread and guilt. She was just fine in there. She had kept up her end of the deal, but I was failing her. I couldn’t keep her inside, and she might not survive being born so young. I kept saying, “We won’t forget her. This isn’t going to be one of those things where we never say her name.” I remember the strength of my emotional attachment to her. Well meaning people always say things like, “You’re young. You can have another baby.” I wanted that specific baby, the one who had been growing inside me all that time. A bond had already formed.
But I remember telling my mother that if the worst did happen, I would try not to “go crazy” because “it wouldn’t be fair” to my husband. (I’m Bipolar I, so I wasn’t just being theatrical.) I think the two of us might have been more successful at grieving together than this couple, but, of course, our baby lived. I can’t imagine…
I do think that for the long, single-take birth scene to work as well as it can, viewers need to bring a bit of their own birth-related trauma with them. This is the kind of cinematic set up that makes you question everything that happens once labor begins. We know we’re heading toward a tragic outcome, so what exactly will go wrong?
My husband and I kept saying over and over again, “I would go to the hospital.” I actually know several people who have had spectacularly successful home births of various types. So I’m not saying home birth is bad. But I personally would go to a hospital. So much can go wrong. Actually, I would pretty much have to go a hospital. Because of the way my daughter was delivered, my future births have to be by C-section to avoid the risk of uterine rupture. Plus stuff often goes wrong for me.
I noticed an impulse to criticize everything the parents and midwife did. And I do think the midwife (intriguingly played by Molly Parker) makes some questionable choices. I also found it strange that someone as determined to give birth at home as Kirby’s Martha didn’t seem to have any idea what she should do or what should be happening. But, actually, I think my tendency to critique everyone’s behavior in this scene is rooted in my desire to prevent such a tragedy from happening to me. (The ol’, “This could never happen to me because I would know to do xyz” thing.)
This scene (shot in one take, all shown before the opening credits) is riveting (though I do think it would be more emotional if we were given time to form some personal attachments to the parents first).
The rest of the movie shows the lingering effects of this tragedy on Martha, her husband Sean (Shia LaBeouf), and her mother, Elizabeth.
Martha’s family’s insistence that she must sue the midwife (who already faces criminal charges) for wrongful death is so frustrating. This agenda is pushed mainly by her mother, but soon almost everyone becomes complicit in advancing the cause.
For the longest time, I could not understand Martha’s mother’s obsession with the idea that she needs to talk to a lawyer. She says she wants Martha to get past this, to get closure, to move forward. Still, I wanted to yell at the screen, “A lawyer will not heal her! She needs to see a doctor!”
I don’t know why nobody suggests this. As my husband noted, “It seems like she has post partum depression and no baby.” She’s definitely going through a trauma response, grieving on top of hormonal changes. Why does no one take her to a doctor? Because she chose home birth, is she not being monitored by an OB? (Why would she be, I suppose.) She could probably use both a counselor and some medication, but a counselor at the very least. In the immediate aftermath, I see no problem with simply giving her space. When it gets to the point that she quits her job and checks out of her marriage, though, she probably needs medical intervention.
What’s strange to me is that none of the other characters seems to understand why she’s upset and behaving strangely. They all act like her behavior is so puzzling. I find that very weird. I thought her behavior was pretty normal myself. Something traumatic has happened to her, something that both hurt her deeply and makes no sense. Of course she needs some space to process that.
The strain on the marriage seems to come because Martha and her husband have such different styles of processing their feelings and expressing grief. He wants to weep, to connect, to mourn (vocally), to cherish every remnant of the baby’s short life. She disconnects and pushes the pain away.
My husband noted that LaBeouf’s Sean seems “to grieve in a more traditional way.” I found his observation a bit surprising because Martha grieves exactly as I had expected her to before seeing the movie. (Well, I mean, I didn’t expect the hyper-focus on apple seeds!) Having heard that the baby dies and the marriage falls apart, I expected the shaken mother to behave in exactly the way that Martha does. (Otherwise, what’s the movie about?) Her withdrawal from everyone seems perfectly normal to me–though when her trauma response doesn’t alleviate at all after multiple months go by, I think she definitely needs professional help.
I did find LaBeouf very sympathetic as Sean, though. His character felt extremely real to me. I’ve known many men with a similar personality and demeanor. And I felt for him (although Martha’s cruel mother is right that he’s a bit selfish and immature, expecting Martha to be there for him without respecting or exploring her needs).
The rest of the supporting cast is good, too. Parker is fantastic as the midwife. (The camera is zoomed into her eyes so often that she probably had to show the cinematographer her vision insurance.) Well-known stand-up Iliza Shlesinger quietly plays Martha’s sister, while her clueless car dealer husband is played by Benny Safdie (one of the brothers who directed Uncut Gems). Sarah Snook plays one of the film’s more baffling characters, cousin Suzanne the lawyer (who is hopefully a better lawyer than a cousin).
The movie looks good, too. It’s replete with visual symbolism (possibly a little too heavy handed there) and overloaded with apple imagery. Some shots are just gorgeous. Howard Shore’s score is gorgeous, too. I wouldn’t mind listening to it in the car–if I ever went anywhere.
Best Scene/Best Action Sequence:
The last scene that comes before the film’s title is riveting. For one thing, it’s nearly thirty minutes long and most of it plays out in real time as Kirby goes through the agonies, indignities, terror, and discomforts of labor and giving birth.
Best Scene Visually:
There’s a shot of Martha looking out a window into the snow that I love simply because of its beauty. But there are other reasons to love it, too. For one thing, it pairs particularly nicely with the image that fills the screen in the last scene of the film and remains there over the closing credits.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment, Ellen Burstyn:
Though I can understand the raves about Kirby, Burstyn actually gives my favorite performance in the film. She’s at her best when delivering a specific monologue fairly late in the story, the moment when she explains to her daughter why she wants her to lift up her head and fight. Up until that point, I found the character so frustrating, her motivations mysterious and her behavior infuriating. But this short monologue unlocks the character for us. Yes, the speech itself is pretty blatantly good old fashioned Oscar bait, but thanks to the superb delivery of the actress, it still works, and suddenly Burstyn’s character emerges as the most fully realized and fascinating. I’d love to learn more about her.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment, Vanessa Kirby:
I do love the way Kirby plays a very early scene in a clothing store. In fact, I love every glance she steals at other people’s healthy, living children (who are invariably everywhere when you have lost one yourself). Kirby makes Martha’s complicated feelings so clear to us. Watching her, I remembered how much frustration I felt when trying (and failing) to conceive.
But perhaps Kirby’s best scene is her court room monologue near the end. She delivers the lines very well. And she has been journeying toward this epiphany for most of the movie, so the results are deeply satisfying.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment, Shia LaBeouf:
Early on, I actually preferred LaBeouf’s performance to Kirby’s. He reminded me of real people that I have known and seemed more authentic than she did in some ways. Whatever his personal failings, LaBeouf does an excellent job of telegraphing Sean’s pain. (Well, maybe “telegraphing” is the wrong word. A more apt one might be “screaming.”) He’s good with anguish, though.
At one point, my husband said, “Okay, he had my sympathy up until now.”
“Don’t forget, he’s probably drunk,” I said.
“That’s no excuse,” he replied.
“No,” I said, “but it’s an explanation.”
In that scene, Sean acts out in a way that seems to be building to rape. It’s a bit of a gray area since we don’t know how the couple normally behaves together, but (to use imprecise terminology) it’s pretty rapey. Certainly he deliberately ignores the fact that his wife does not want to have sex at that moment. He’s ignoring her pain and privileging his own.
I praise LaBeouf here because Sean’s behavior at that point becomes so objectionable and unappealing. Yet I continued to find the character sympathetic (or at least pitiable). LaBeouf is very good at showing us that he’s in pain. He must be, or why would I have continued to care about him?
The Negatives:
The trial bothered me a lot, particularly Martha’s big speech at the end. Kirby delivers the lines so well. Her performance reaches its zenith here. But I still felt that the writing was sort of clumsy.
Why does the judge let her speak to the court at random? They make a big point of saying how irregular it is, and then he just allows it. I could not help thinking of Perry Mason (the classic black-and-white series with which my mother was obsessed) in which the judge always notes that whatever Mr. Mason is asking for is highly irregular, but then makes a special exception for him. Perry Mason is a super-hero of 1950s legal dramas. That kind of thing is not supposed to happen in real life, and that it does detracts from the realism the film has carefully built up to this point. The opening of the movie is so special, but that particular conclusion feels too formulaic (and much too convenient) to me.
The film also left me with so many unanswered questions about Cousin Suzanne (who is particularly hard to figure out) and the midwife herself. I know the story isn’t about the midwife, but I wish that we did see the aftermath from her point of view, as well.
My only other criticism is that Vanessa Kirby’s performance (while excellent) is not as mind-blowing as I had heard. Olivia Colman also won the Volpi Cup in Venice for her turn as Queen Anne in The Favourite, and I found that performance more memorable than Kirby’s work here. Then again, as I first sat through The Favourite, I thought, “What am I watching?” with a sort of pervasive stunned feeling. I sat processing for ten minutes after the credits rolled before I decided that I loved it. So maybe I will settle into this performance, too.
I will say that Kirby makes Martha consistently sympathetic, despite (or maybe even because of) her withdrawn behavior. At no point during this film was I ever on anybody else’s side but Martha’s. I think I just expected too much from Kirby’s performance. It has earned such tremendous praise. Yes, it was good, excellent, in fact. But I didn’t think it was the most extraordinary work I’ve seen in the past one-hundred years, or even this year. Perhaps my expectations were too high. Maybe it makes a different, too, that I’m watching in my bedroom instead of a movie theater.
Overall:
Pieces of a Woman is a must watch film if you follow the Oscars. Ellen Burstyn gives my favorite performance as Martha’s difficult mother, and both Burstyn and lead actress Vanessa Kirby have a good chance to win an Oscar this year. Believe it or not, Shia LaBeouf is also very good as the baby’s increasingly troubled father. But if you’ve ever lost a baby, this might be too difficult to watch.