Engaging Culture

Most people expect to see movies geared at the feminine coming out on Mother’s Day. Well, unless mom is watching Iron Man 2 like millions of other people on Mother’s Day, she really can’t miss. I already told you about Babies, the new documentary, but now director Rodrigo Garcia (Nine Lives) is coming out with a new film about the unfolding drama of the intersecting lives of three women who are each affected in some way by adoption.

In Mother and Child, a 14 year-old girl has sex, gets pregnant, and gives up her baby for adoption. We meet this woman forty years later in the present day, her name is Karen (Annette Bening), and she is bitter and emotionally closed off having never gotten over giving up her child. She is caring for her dying mother and after mom dies, she is left alone with her guilt and pain. As you might expect, we also meet the daughter that she gave up at 14, her name is Elizabeth (Naomi Watts). She is now a beautiful and successful lawyer. Finally, we meet Lucy (Kerry Washington) who is having trouble conceiving with her husband, and is turning to adoption to help her create the family she desires.

I’m not sure what it is about our society and adoption, it seems like the only time we hear about it is when Madonna or Angelina are pining after third-world babies or an unsatisfied parent sends their adopted son back to an orphanage in Russia. It’s always the sensational, negative, and shocking that gets the story. And while I don’t think that this film is addressing adoption with such prejudice or sensationalism, I don’t think it is giving the full picture of what adoption is really all about. I’m sure that this film will not do well at the box office, but the critics will love it, it gives a handful of female actors a chance to shine in hopes of winning Oscar gold. It will be weepy and filled with all sorts of emotional turmoil, but the one thing I don’t think it will have is insight into what adoption really feels like.

As Christians we are adopted, loved by a Father who cares about us. Adoption is a picture in scripture of redemption, that which is unwanted and useless becoming priceless and filled with worth. That is how we feel being adopted as His sons and daughters. But this movie isn’t about adoption, as much as it circles around that topic, it is about women. It is about the emotions that go along with motherhood. It is about three women who are looking for fulfillment in something that can never satisfy, and their struggle to pull their lives together. Maybe if I had a baby I would be happy, maybe if I knew my real mother everything would be alright, maybe if I could reunite with the baby I gave up in my teenage pregnancy, then I could be fulfilled. It’s all about the mess that we as sinful people make of life and family. It should give us a glimpse of our desperate need for help.
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