Casa de los Babys

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All-star casts gets little to work with , 2008-12-10
Dynamite casts slowly falls into the oblivion of the script. Not sure what the point of this movie was, as their is no higher moral point conveyed than maybe a couple should adopt a street orphan over a newborn. br /Ending is a total disaster. Most characters are stereotypes with ZERO character development. Finally, I have no idea where the setting is. br /Extremely poor offering from Sayles.

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Excellent, 2008-09-09
There's a moment in Johns Sayles' latest film, Casa De Los Babys, that is among the most poignant ever filmed. A young maid in an unnamed Latin American country's main baby mill is engaged in a conversation with an Irish woman down to adopt. The Irish woman, Eileen (Susan Lynch, from Sayles' The Secret of Roan Inish), does not speak Spanish and gives a poignant tale about her life and desire for a child, and then the Spanish girl, Asuncion (Vanessa Martinez, from Sayles' `Lone Star'), tells of giving a baby of hers up for adoption four years earlier, and both women touch each other, with the quiver of their voices and the emotion of their eyes. Eileen rhapsodizes about getting a child and her desires to be a good mother, as she always dreamt of, while Asuncion, understands nothing of what is said, but empathically `gets it', because she gave up her child. She imagines the earnestness in Eileen and imagines her child is with a mother like Eileen. It's a terrific moment that uses words to show how superfluous words can be. br / This is why Sayles is not only the premier independent filmmaker, but flat-out one of the best around, if not in film history.... It is not the best film that John Sayles has ever made, and that may be simply that it was too short, at barely over an hour and a half- the first film since the Gwyneth Paltrow film Great Expectations, that probably could have used an extra 30-40 minutes, but it is a good one. Unfortunately there is only one Sayles around that makes these sorts of films on a consistent basis. br /

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Long, Boring and Pointless, 2008-02-19
This movie was quite long, and went nowhere. It is about six ladies who go to South America to adopt babies. The people in South America are giving these ladies a hard time and trying to get more money out of the Americans. The ladies wait a long time to get a baby...this is all that happens in two hours. It was boring, predictable, and boring. The movie ended and nothing happened. Don't waste your time

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

poetic human slice of life, 2007-03-14
I got this DVD by accident, having forgotten that I had already seen it several years ago. I rarely watch a movie twice. The opening scene of the nursery looked suspiciously familiar but it was so lovely that I kept on watching. At no point did I want to stop. I enjoyed it much more this time than the last, which I suspect bears witness to the fact that there is a lot there. br / br /The cast is all superb. The setting, Acapulco is lush, colorful and very beautiful. The locals who play themselves are filmed with the affection and respect that represents John Sayles' point of view. This is a director who has deep love for people and it comes across in so many ways. The scenes of the infants are just precious, without being overly-cute. Each of the main characters is presented objectively--we see the strengths and the weaknesses of most of them, although the Marcia Gay Harden character is clearly the "baddest." (Actually I became fond of her by the end!) br / br /I wasn't bothered by the fact that there were no clear cut resolutions to each woman's "story." I found it too short and would have liked more but it did seem emotionally complete. br / br /There is a scene in which the young Irish-American woman confides her fantasy of what a day with her new daughter would be like, to the Mexican maid who speaks no English. The maid sits on the bed and listens and then tells her story---of her 4 year old daughter adopted and living somewhere, she doesn't know where, in the US. It is an incredibly moving scene---one of the best in "movieland" in my opinion...of how people can communicate from the depth of their hearts even without having the same language.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

Classic Sayles - character/culture as relevant as space/time, 2006-11-11
I think Sayles did a great job bringing together a number of very believable characters and just showing them to us for 90-some odd minutes. John Sayles is one of the best American and original independent filmmakers out there. This is a warm, funny and at times poignant look at the adoption process at a South American clinic attended by six disparate women - all eager and emotionally at odds - awaiting their turn to return home with their new infant. I respect Sayles appreciation of complexity, especially as he favors a film that is pregnant with questions rather than delivering a simple answer. However it's his predilection towards a complex ensemble cast that I think may undermine his films as of late. br / br /The brilliance of this film is exactly the characteristic that many here have criticized it for: it contradicts itself all over the place and ends abruptly with no resolution. All have their contradictions, and none clearly speaks some unambiguous authorial opinion. The son of the hotel owner mouths his leftist analysis with his buddies, but is really a drunken loser. Rita Moreno, through her frustration with her husband's politics, voices the frustration of so many women: politics is one thing, but who'll take care of the kids? And of course, the reverse is implied as well: kids are one thing, but who'll take care of the politics? You can go through each of the characters and seem some inherent pull in opposite directions. What possible resolution could you expect? Adoption is an inherently troubling phenomenon. It always involves awkward intersections of race and class, opportunity and the lack thereof, sex and sexism, law and morals. br / br /I loved that none of the characters is entirely sympathetic, except perhaps the three homeless boys. They are all complicated and corrupted by a complicated and corrupt world that places a premium on babies and motherhood, but only under the "right" circumstances for the right women and the right kids. br / br /I was very grateful that there was no real closure at the end, and that all Sayles had to say was that, despite all, both the least sympathetic and the most sympathetic of the potential moms were about to leave with babies. This is certainly for anyone who is considering adoption (domestic or international -- either way, it's all the same issues) should see it. br /