January 8, 2021
On the night of September 17, Martha (Vanessa Kirby) went into labor. She had long planned to have her baby delivered at home. Her midwife Barbara was at that moment indisposed, so she sent another midwife Eva (Molly Parker) in her stead. Martha's labor was long and difficult and the baby was in distress, so Eva called for an ambulance. Martha was still eventually able to give birth to her daughter. After only a few seconds, the baby suddenly stopped breathing.
Such were the tense and harrowing first thirty minutes of this film which Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó shot in a single long shot, conveying all the excited anticipation of the coming baby, the nervous concern about the new midwife, the painful exertion of the labor, the uncomfortable dread of the protracted delivery, until the incomparable anguish of its outcome. This should count as one of the best scenes of childbirth in the history of cinema.
This film began with such a high powerful peak, everything that followed felt like they were struggling to keep up. Following the terrible tragedy, Martha kept her grief to herself and withdrew from the people around her. She became cold to her blue-collar partner Sean (Shia LaBeouf) who struggled in vain to restore their connection. She was at odds with her imperious wealthy mother Elizabeth (Ellen Burstyn) who was adamant that the midwife should be thrown into jail for negligent malpractice.
Kirby, who had already won awards for playing Princess Margaret on the TV series "The Crown," attracts awards attention again with her performance here. After that exhausting childbirth scene, Kirby also had several long wordless scenes in which only her face and body language conveyed her inner pain and guilt as she went around her daily routines. Her final monologue in court was delivered with unexpected restraint.
Chronically troubled actor LaBeouf delivered a sensitive sympathetic performance of his flawed character Sean. Perhaps being of lower social standing than Martha, Sean's opinions were not really taken seriously. From the start, we already see how Elizabeth looked down on Sean by buying Martha a car. LaBeouf wisely chose to underplay his part to good effect.
With her juicy monologue in Act 3, 88 year-old Burstyn courts Oscar attention again 20 years after her nomination for "Requiem for a Dream" in 2001, which came 20 years after her nomination for "Resurrection" in 1981. Because of their 50 year age gap, it would have been more realistic if Burstyn played Kirby's grandmother than her mother.
When she adapted her own play into this screenplay, writer Kata Weber may not have been able to completely shake off the theatricality of certain scenes. However overwrought some scenes may be, they were able to squeeze out memorable performances from these three main actors. Even as we followed Martha's 8-month ordeal during the film's 128 minutes, Mundruczó and Weber still left a lot of Martha's frame of mind and motivations as blanks for us to fill for ourselves. 7/10.
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