MOTHER AND CHILD

MA'S VIEW

We saw this movie more than a month ago.  It was my idea to see it as I have a great respect for Annette Benning's work as well as the little that I have seen of Naomi Watts.  Certainly their acting did not disappoint.  However, I felt the subject matter was not dealt with in a manner that engaged the audience.  It seemed to me that the director/writer Rodrigo Garcia felt that it was necessary to flood his audience with as many examples as possible of the mother/child relationship in order to convey the message, thus watering down the impact of it.  It would have worked much better to concentrate on the central characters and distil a truer and more intense essence of what this special relationship means.

The plot revolves around a 50 yo woman (Benning) who gave up her daughter for adoption 35 years previously and who currently takes care of her ageing (and guilt-ridden) mother.  Meanwhile the daughter (Watts) has become a successful hard-headed corporate lawyer who delights in sexual conquest of any male who comes her way, conveniently having had herself sterilised at age 17 for reasons we are left to guess.  Both these characters are emotionally dysfunctional and in many ways uncannily similar to each other and I was looking forward to watching their progress towards emotional growth and a possible reunion. This was not to be but certainly there is a kind of closure when the mother ends up making contact with the grandchild her daughter manages to conceive during an affair with her boss.  Enroute to this conclusion, far too many random mother/daughter relationships are presented for our examination, most of which do not enhance our appreciation of the relationship.

My score:  6/10


PEPE'S VIEW:

I went along to this movie expecting a bit of schmalz and so was not as disappointed as Ma was.  I guess going to a movie with low expectations helps enormously.  There were some interesting scenes but I agree that there were far too many "Mother/Child" relationships in the movie to allow the writer/director to adequately deal with any of them.  The character of the daughter, Elizabeth (Naomi Watts) was interesting at the beginning of the movie but it went nowhere and the whole scenerio just became trite and increasingly unlikely.
There were far too many scenes involving the adoption agency and the ending was just too incredible and ridiculous for words.
All in all an average, boring, predictable movie with nothing to redeem it except some better than average acting from Benning and Watts.

My Score :  6/10