PIECES OF A WOMAN – Review

In just a couple of days, we’ll be raising a glass (considering current events, probably in our homes) and bidding farewell to a year many are glad to see end. As with other New Year’s, it’s a time of reflection, of “taking stock”, and strengthening those family connections. This new film looks at how those bonds, so solid for much of the year, can irreparably crumble and almost collapse as the months pass. In this case, a tremendous tragedy befalls a family as they work toward taking their lives into a new “phase”. But as the couple’s lives shatter, hope still stirs amongst those scattered PIECES OF A WOMAN.

However, as the story begins, we meet “the man”. Fall is easing into winter as the hard-working, gruff Sean (Shia LaBeouf) is about to take some time off from his stint on the team constructing a bridge in Boston. Across town, the woman, his wife Martha (Vanessa Kirby) is enjoying a “going away” party her employers are throwing at their swanky HQ in a high-rise. She’s nearing the end of her pregnancy, so a sabbatical has begun. She and Sean meet at her brother-in-law Chris’ (Benny Safdie) car dealership to upgrade their wheels, from compact to family SUV. At their home, Sean presents her with a gift for their just-completed nursery room: the sonograms in a nice frame. A few weeks later (but still a bit early) it’s “go time”. Martha is enduring extremely painful contractions as Sean frantically phones their midwife to begin the home-birthing process. But she’s stuck at another birth, so her co-worker Eva (Molly Parker) arrives. She’s concerned about Martha’s agony (and she’s worried that they’ve got a sub). After a dip in a warm bath, Martha starts pushing while Eva monitors the baby’s erratic heartbeat. Just in case, Eva tells Sean to dial 9-11. She then implores Martha to push with all her might. Finally, the baby emerges, and as the new parents coddle her, Eva is suddenly filled with alarm. Only she notices that the infant‘s skin tone has a purplish tint. While she attempts CPR, Sean sprints out the front to meet the ambulance. Jump to a month later as they are still reeling from that awful night. Martha tries to ignore the blank stares from her co-workers as she returns to her job. Eva is in the news as she is charged with criminal negligence. A dazed Martha signs the form to donate her baby’s body to a medical school. This angers Sean who is now united with the mother-in-law who never bonded with him, Elizabeth (Ellen Burstyn). They want a grave with a carved headstone, which baffles Martha. The rest of the family doesn’t understand why she’s not taking an active interest in the case against Eva. The couple begins to drift apart as Sean ends his years of sobriety.  Could the demise of their child hasten the end of their marriage?

Kirby astounds as the title “woman” delivering one of the best performances of the year, bringing Martha’s story “arc” to heart-wrenching life. As her co-workers eagerly touch her birth-ready belly, her body language conveys her anxious state tinged with embarrassment as though she’s a display ad for impending motherhood. But when that night arrives, Kirby contorts her face and voice to illustrate the utter agony Martha is enduring. That’s balanced by her need for comfort from her partner and her anxiety over this “scrub” scuttling the big birthing plans. After the unthinkable, Kirby, with her unsteady gaze and walk, shows how grief has almost “shut down” Martha. It’s acerbated when everyone seems to “gang up” on her for not grieving “correctly” and not passionately screaming for Eva’s head. Martha tries to feel something via self-medication at a dance club, but not even a flirtation with a stranger can jolt her back to reality. It’s wonderful work from an emerging talent. One of her best scenes is with an actress who is entering her seventh decade on film, the indomitable Burstyn. She imbues matriarch Elizabeth with a sad jittery fragility which makes the big family brunch showdown so surprising. Burstyn‘s Elizabeth unleashes her fierce “lioness” as all the bottled-up anger and frustration explode in a scathing monologue. At a time when many would be pondering retirement, Burstyn is still at “the top of her game”. LaBeouf gives voice (a graveled one for certain) to the blindsided Sean who can only work out his anger issues through booze and infidelity, even thinking that “dropping out” in Seattle is the “cure-all”.  Safdie, best known for his indie filmmaking, makes Chris a believable intimidated “patsy”, by Sean along with his wife Anita played with annoyed smirk by stand-up comedian Iliza Shlesinger.  There’s a terrific turn by Sarah Snook as their lawyer cousin, who is hiding her own secrets. At the heart of the drama is Parker’s overwhelmed Eva, who can’t quite put on a “happy face “ for the worried couple as she slowly realizes she’s out of her “depth”, even as she frantically skims through her workbooks, desperate to find an answer. Parker’s facial expressions in the courtroom, tell us more of Eva’s inner heartbreak than any dialogue.

Director Kornel Mundruczo eschews fancy narrative tricks to paint a portrait of unfathomable tragedy, while never stooping to “wallow” in melodrama. Particularly in the birthing sequence, his camera swoops past the principals, down the hallway, and focuses in the desperate drama in the characters’ faces. It’s an intimate form of chaos with no foretelling of the horrific outcome. Its impact owes a great deal to the moving screenplay by Kata Weber that never opts for easy answers and doesn’t paint in “broad strokes” to denote heroes and villains. All are flawed humans struggling to keep going with their inner anguish. Yes, this is quite a tear-jerker, but the finale offers hope of healing, that one can survive the unthinkable, even bask in the warm sunshine. One of the year’s best dramas hints that there may be a way to reassemble these PIECES OF A WOAMN.

3.5 Out of 4

PIECES OF A WOMAN opens everywhere and screens exclusively in the St. Louis area at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Cinemas beginning Wednesday, December 30, 2020. It is also streaming exclusively on Netflix.