Pieces of a Woman currently playing on Netflix is an incredibly bleak story about a young woman who loses her baby during childbirth, a failed home birth. The story also outlines how the parents are dealing with the loss of their first child and the litigation that ensues.
Martha (Vanessa Kirby) is expecting her first child with Sean (Shia LaBeouf) and has planned a home birth to be supervised by Eva (Molly Parker). The labor is a little strained and the baby dies shortly after birth. The death is overwhelming for both Martha and Sean and they both deal with grief differently, one withdrawing and the other wishing to take legal action for negligence.
Directed by Kornel Mundruczo, this story is rough as all the actors portray what can only be described as a traumatic experience. The film works through the relationships of each character and how they slowly come to terms with the passing.
This film has a stellar cast with some outshining others.
Written by Kata Weber, Pieces of a Women outlines the trauma a family goes through when a baby dies unexpectedly during birth. The grief each person experiences while trying to come to terms with the death and how they grapple with some sort of resolution.
Standout performance is Vanessa Kirby who plays Martha. Vanessa is very much an underrated actor who deserves more challenging roles on the screen. The grief envelopes the character, Martha and Vanessa slowly unravels on the screen in a captivating performance.
People may remember her from The Crown playing Princess Margaret, but Kirby has also won audiences over in her portrayal of Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire at the National Theater London and also playing opposite Tom Cruise in his latest installment of Mission Impossible.
Another incredible performance is by Ellen Burstyn who plays Elizabeth, Martha’s mother. The role goes from strength to strength and watching Burstyn play a women struggling to come to terms with the death of a grandchild and supporting a suffering daughter is something only a well experienced actor could accomplish to appear as genuine and real.
Burstyn is a legend in her own right, who has an incredible career spanning almost 70 years, winning an Oscar for her performance in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.
Shia LaBeouf as Sean is a little wooden, mechanical and mumbles a lot throughout the brief performance.
Pieces of a Woman is a very unique story about the unfortunate circumstances around the death of a baby during a home birth. The fragility of both parents as they face the unexpected death of their new born, but also how everyone handles grief differently.
But what is remarkable about this film is the strong female performances and how each of them slowly overcome the grief in their own different ways and how the loss of a child plays deeply on parents with some unable to move on from their loss.
This is a moving and emotional film that is definitely worthy of the current Oscar buzz.
Pieces of a Woman is currently available on Netflix.
