Pieces of a Woman (2020)
(Netflix Streaming, November 2021) Aaand this year’s entry in the “heartbreaking downer drama that lets actors act and earn Oscar nominations” is the very Manchester-by-the-Sea-ish Pieces of a Woman, which wows viewers with a single uninterrupted take of pregnancy, delivery and newborn mortality and then spends an hour wallowing in the ensuing grief. But is grief the right word, given that the lead character seems to keep her head while others lose theirs? Shot in sparse Montréal winter tones (passing itself off as Boston), Pieces of a Woman is a kind of low-key drama meant to solicit awards and critical attention, while leaving larger audiences to decide if that’s the kind of film that they really want to see. Nearly every actor does their best in navigating this nuanced drama, from Shia Labeouf’s take on a blue-collar bridge worker who can’t deal with losing his child, to Vanessa Kirby’s gradual acceptance of the situation, to Ellen Burstyn’s near-villainous take on a controlling mother. Kirby is particularly interesting here, as she switches from attention-getting performances in crowd-pleasing action blockbusters (Mission Impossible 6, Hobbs and Shaw) to the kinds of dramatic roles that lead to more than a flash-in-the-pan career. For cinephiles, the big draw here is the sustained drama of the childbirth scene that runs over 24 minutes of a single uninterrupted, very emotionally challenging take: a showy bravura showcase, but nonetheless an effective one. The rest of the film is far more conventional and even familiar: films about living in the shadow of a profound loss tend to run against the same lines, and while the lead character’s ability to move past at a faster pace than people around her is interesting, it’s still very much of the same tone as similar films. Pieces of a Woman is obviously the furthest away from an uplifting film as it’s possible to be (although the ending is thankfully not as bleak as it could have been), and not the kind of film that can be seen by anyone at any time.
