In the post Haggis/Iñárritu hyper-narrative landscape, Mother and Child is only an unfortunate imitation of the interesting interweaving stories of Crash and Amores Perros. It will also come as no surprise that hyper-narrative proponent Alejandro González Iñárritu himself acts as a producer on Mother and Child, but if his influence has only been to infect a film that intriguing central ideas with the irritating flaccidness of his own 2006 film Babel, then perhaps he should reconsider the form in which he works. A prime example is the holier than holier life preaching of the likes of which has plagued Iñárritu’s work since 21 Grams. After originally premiering at the Toronto Film Festival back in 2009, Mother and Child has taken a rather protracted and long winded journey to UK screens. Rather like Kenneth Lonergan’s much maligned film Margaret, a similarly multi-stranded, interconnected affair, Mother and Child has been waiting in the wings for a while now. Though Margaret has its flaws, Lonergan ably poses some interesting questions and debates within the maelstrom of colliding narratives. Mother and Child on the other hand only succeeds in losing the central focus of the film when the glossy and contrived denouement comes creaking into view. Life may be connected in ways that we don’t quite expect, but by the end Mother and Child is spoilt by its triteness and overworked plot.

As the title would suggest, Mother and Child focuses on the complexity of the relationship between the mother and her child. With three separate and colliding narratives; one about 50-year-old woman who looks back on her decision to give up her child for adoption, the daughter she gave up for adoption 35 years ago, and young woman looking to adopt a child of her own, there are some genuinely moving moments concerning some of the difficulties of motherhood. Annette Bening in particular shines as a sharp tongued physiotherapist, Karen, who, while caring for her ill mother, admits feelings of regret and that she has been haunted by it since giving her child up for adoption. Bening shows once again how great an actor she is by balancing the comic side of her character’s quick fire rebuttal of any acts of intimacy, with the more emotional and revealing side that pours out as she comes to terms with her regrets. Just as impressive as Bening is Naomi Watts as the now grown up daughter, high flying lawyer Elizabeth. Watts brilliantly projects some of the same curt personality traits as her on screen mother and has a masochistic desire to wreak havoc on any sort of ideal of male superiority and similarly refutes any sort of intimate connection with others. The third strand of this narrative concerns a couple who are finding it difficult to conceive and decide to adopt a child from an already pregnant girl who is reticent towards her the child she is going to give birth to. The connection between these three strands is a convent who help in the adoption process and acts as a narrative go-between for all these characters to be, in someway, loosely connected.

But this is precisely when Mother and Child works. As each separate strand expresses some point on motherhood and raising children, the emotional integrity of the film remains intact. When the film attempts to piece each strand together this feeling is in the end lost. Director Rodrigo Garcia has written and unearthed some hard-hitting material on the reality of bringing up a child. There are of course many unseen pressures that the film really hits home about, but when a melancholic sentiment is introduced in the final quarter much of the hard work is immediately undone. One should not overlook however that Mother and Child does a good job on forthrightly voicing the female perspective on complex dichotomy between mothers and their children. Not all of the people in this film suffer from the same problem but look to a similar avenue of catharsis. Whether they will reach any form of emotional release is the absorbing quality of this film, but one that Mother and Child  chooses to undermine with a sugary sweet conclusion.

One of the films other failings is the insufferable use of a sub par Thomas Newman score and the way that it plinks and plonks its way through various moments of sadness or tragedy like someone signposting all of the films emotional climaxes. Irritating to say the least. There is also the sense that by the end of Mother and Child feels that ‘hyper narrative’ films would benefit greatly from resisting the temptation to tie the whole experience up in a neat little bow. Sometimes our lives are disparate and we would like to keep them that way.