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CASA DE LOS BABYS Send This Review to a Friend
Writer-director John Sayles has the reputation of always coming up with a film that's interesting, and this reputation remains solid with his latest, "Casa De Los Babys," an elaboration on a short story of his. It was showcased prominently at the 2003 Toronto International Film festival. Sayles delves into a traumatic subject, a desire of women to have babies that becomes strong enough to lead to their adopting, with all the tension involving the nerve-wracking waiting for a baby to be processed. In the situation Sayles has constructed, six women, each with her own motivation and problems, sit out the anxiety in an unnamed Latin American country.
A good cast heightens the inherent drama and makes the story credible. In some ways this is a sad film, as one is prompted to wonder to what extent each of the women is capable of being a good mother. The actresses include Maggie Gyllenhaal, Daryl Hannah, Marcia Gay Harden, Susan Lynch, Mary Steenburgen and Lili Taylor. The personalities of the characters they play are varied and invite audience judgment of motives and capabilities. Each of the actresses is excellent, but Daryl Hannah's strong performance is a special revelation.
There's the added boon of Rita Moreno as Señora Muñoz, who runs the hotel in which the waiting ladies are ensconced. The film is perceptive in reflecting local antagonism to foreigners who take children from the country to fill their own desires. There is a touching scene in which nurses show sadness at passing along to the prospective mothers babies they have been nurturing pending the working out of arrangements.
Sayles shows us how women relate to each other under the circumstances and how different they are. Anyone who has adopted or has contemplated adoption should find the film especially riveting. For the rest of us, just watching the situation unfold provides for intriguing and instructive filmgoing. An IFC Films release.
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