Synopsis
The lives of three women have a commonality: adoption. Karen is a physical therapist who regrets that, as a teenager, she gave up her daughter for adoption. Elizabeth was an adopted child and is now a successful lawyer, but her personal life lacks warmth. Lucy and her husband have failed to conceive and now hope to adopt a baby to make their family complete.
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Cast
- Naomi WattsElizabeth
- Annette BeningKaren
- Kerry WashingtonLucy
- Jimmy SmitsPaco
- Samuel L. JacksonPaul
- S. Epatha MerkersonAda
- Cherry JonesSister Joanne
- Elpidia CarrilloSofia
- Shareeka EppsRay
- Alexandria M. SallingKaren (age 14)
Recommendations
- 80
Variety
An insightfully observed and exceptionally acted ensemble piece precisely about what the title suggests. - 80
Village Voice
The force of the acting alone almost compensates for some of the more difficult (and realistic) questions about not giving birth that García willfully sidesteps. - 75
San Francisco Chronicle
Still, the goodwill lingers, even though Mother and Child falls down, dies and is beginning to look a little green and stiff about 15 minutes before the finish line. - 70
New York Magazine (Vulture)
Mother and Child is suffused with grief and loss. It’s also suffused with compassion and insight. - 70
Movieline
Garcia, despite creating yet another vibrant canvas for his actors, deflects the burden of this toughest and most modern of familial conundrums, offering instead the bland, regressive ideal of motherhood as not only redemptive but required. - 63
Boston Globe
Mother and Child glows for a good 90 minutes before an increasing reliance on contrivance and coincidence makes the lamp flicker and then fizzle out. - 60
Boxoffice Magazine
Annette Bening is the most pivotal character in the movie, both angry and scared. - 60
The Hollywood Reporter
Some may find the film overly schematic, but Garcia smartly uses three parallel narratives to probe the extraordinary nature of motherhood.
