Netflix is good is marketing its movies. So, I thought Pieces of a Woman would be interesting. It was terrible. It's Marriage Story if their kid died during a home birth.
I thought this was about a miscarriage for some reason. I wasn't paying attention to the 20 minute single shot birth scene, I was playing Stardew Valley while simultaneously cussing this couple and their midwife out for doing a home birth. I have issues with this. But it's the crux of the film, and I didn't entirely hate that it left it vague about the culpability, it was inevitably about the mother standing up for herself and speaking her truth while not being defined by others. Cool.
Too bad she was a cunt, and her husband's a dullard dudebro played by Shia LaBeouf. Okay, he's a dumb, poor construction worker who knows about liability issues concerning falling bridges, does he have to sound like a rapey (yes, he is, I'm not being sarcastic) dudebro. Everything and everyone in this movie were awful on some level, to the point you're not on anyone's side. A rich family wanting to sue a midwife for negligence because they need "closure" while manipulating the grieving mother into testifying because the case against the midwife is airtight is too deplorable, you don't care it's about justice. It's not airtight. The whole point is you can't establish cause of death from any of the details or the coroner's report. Like I said, it's a movie about personal growth (literally her apple seeds don't sprout until she gets over herself). The husband sleeps with the lawyer, has to pretend he doesn't know her and somehow winds up back on coke, and you're supposed to feel sorry for him. The most chemistry we see is him cracking jokes and them giving loving gazes during the birth. A bunch of pictures of them doesn't prove to me they were genuinely in love since they had no chemistry to start with. (Also, I've seen Shia's wang twice now in movies and I feel like he does sex scenes as an excuse to walk around with no fucking pants on). Ellen Burstyn's prestige doesn't really come through here, with a heavily delivered monologue on her personal birth story, obviously described by her own mother. And I couldn't help thinking, oh well, you were a baby and did you ever consider your mother lied or exaggerated? Stating she lifted her head purely because it was a test of strength you consciously made as a baby to encourage the daughter to stand up for herself felt ludicrous, she's got the innocent old lady lilt to her voice but she's horrible as a person. Her family's horrible. Losing a baby doesn't give you an entitlement to be a complete douche. This is probably Shia's worst performance, he's a parody of himself. I genuinely disliked this.
It takes more to convince me you wanted to marry a dick than fridge photos.
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