Pieces of a Woman had its first screening at the Venice Film Festival in 2020, where it was very well received. Acquired by Netflix for distribution on the streaming platform, it is one of the strong candidates for several award nominations in the upcoming award season. Its protagonist has already received the Volpi Cup for best actress in Venice.

The Canadian-American co-production is directed by Kornél Mundruczó and written by Kata Wéber, who are a royal couple. The film is inspired by the play they both created in 2018 and which was staged by a theater company in Europe. Kata Wéber wrote the story based on her own personal experience when she lost a child to her partner.

It is a hard story, a powerful drama, that has all the factors to be taken into account by the different organizations that are in charge of awarding the best productions of the cinema. That's why Netflix bought the distribution rights after the Venice Film Festival, and it was also screened at the end of last year at the Toronto Film Festival.

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What is the plot of the film?

Martha Weiss and Sean Carson are about to become parents. She comes from a rich family and has a mother who intervenes in everything and helps her. Sean is a working class worker. But they are both happy because soon they will be parents of a little girl. Martha wants to give birth at home and they have hired the services of a midwife named Barbara, but she cannot attend the day of the birth and sends another midwife with experience and confidence. But the night of the birth, something goes wrong and they lose the baby. Because of possible negligence by the midwife? Time continues to pass and Martha must cope with the painful loss of her daughter, the break-up of her relationship with her partner and conflicts with her mother. The trauma, the grief, the denial, the guilt, will be difficult to overcome. Martha is now a totally broken woman, with a life fragmented into pieces

The film is a drama raised to the tenth power. With a brutal, breathtaking start sequence, with an intensity that lasts approximately thirty minutes of footage. Made with an overwhelming and heartbreaking sequence shot.

The start is the best part of the film, with very credible performances, especially that of the female character, with an emotional force that makes us understand that painful moment when everything goes to hell and tragedy obscures the happiness of a couple that seemed to have everything.

The filmmaker Mundruczó has trusted the director of photography Benjamin Loeb, who has worked on the photography of the film Mandy, from the year2018, to create that intimate and warm atmosphere of the couple's home, together with the frames and camera movements that introduce us to the film and we feel that we are inside the frame, together with the characters.

The photographic work is also remarkable, to capture the passing of the months and the changes of season. The film began in early winter in Boston, and whose story lasts approximately seven months, always taking a temporary leap of one month, in its narrative structure by fragments.

The musical composition plays an important role in bringing us into contact with the story. For this purpose they have worked with the successful Canadian composer Howard Shore, author of the scores of great films, such as the trilogy of The Lord of the Rings and the masterpiece, The Silence of the Lambs, The Fly, The Aviator, The Departed , Promises of the East, Seven and more than eighty films. The delicate and sensitive score composed for the film emphasizes the most dramatic and intimate scenes of the film.

After the prologue, which seems like a short film within the film, because of how well done it is, let's go into the drama that Martha's character will live. After the loss, the character is immersed in a state of denial of feelings. Martha is cold, begins to distance herself from her partner, returns to work and shows no signs of pain to others.

The state of denial, and not extrapolating the pain, is something very common in many people who suffer the loss of a loved one. This is what we will see in the behavior and decisions that Martha makes, who has an inner struggle not to break, pretending to continue with her life, amidst the rubble that tragedy has left on the whole family.

Not only will her relationship with her partner be destroyed, but also her relationship with her sister, brother-in-law and mother will be affected. Marta seems to want to shout to the world that they want to be left alone, she cannot bear the looks of compassion, nor the empathy of her mother to take the midwife to jail. She wants to be alone, to start from scratch and overcome the pain, but to do so she will have to free herself from all the emotional baggage that consumes her inside.

There are many things that stand out in this drama, but it is true that after the first part, the story wanders in the midst of these fragments, the narration becomes somewhat heavy and slow, it is the wonderful performances of the cast that make the story, as a spectator, not boring. And I can assure you that this is due to the wonderful interpretation of Vanessa Kirby.

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Who is Vanessa Kirby?

If you are a fan of The Crown series, you know perfectly well who Vannessa Kirby is. The actress played Princess Margaret in the first two seasons of the successful TV series and most of the public knows her for that job. But she has several years working in the theater, film and television. One of her main works was in the miniseries Great Expectations. She later appeared in romantic comedies such as About Time and Me Before You. He has gradually escalated his career, with characters in films such as Jupiter Rising, Mission: Impossible - Fallout and most recently in Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw.

Her work on The Crown was great, being one of the series' fan favorites, but we have to admit that Vanessa Kirby, playing Martha Weiss in Pieces of a Women, gets the best performance of her career and puts her on the list of possible candidates for the big awards. I have been fascinated by her work in this film and I wish her much success in all her future projects. Until then, this performance can open the door to better projects.

Kirby is the one who stands out from the rest of the cast, but she is accompanied by other great actors, who complement the story the film tells us.

Shia LaBeouf plays Martha's partner, Sean Carson. The working-class man, who is not much seen by his mother-in-law. He is a man who has had addiction problems in the past and has been clean for a long time. He loves Martha and is excited to be the father of a little girl. He will suffer a lot from the loss, but if he is a person who expresses his emotions and manifests his pain, this will cause him to clash with Martha, not being able to understand her attitude, which will cause him to relapse into alcohol and drugs. LaBeouf does a good job of acting, showing that when a controversial actor is well directed, he brings out the best in his art.

Veteran Oscar-winning actress Ellen Burstyn plays Martha's controlling mother, Elizabeth, and tragedy brings out the conflicts with her daughter. A wonderful actress who makes a name for herself in every scene, she is a professional who has left us great characters in the seventh art, with her work in Alice Doesn't Live Here, The Exorcist, Requiem for a Dream, Providence, among many other films.

Molly Parker plays Eva, the midwife who attends Martha's birth, who will be pointed out as guilty and taken to court, where she could be sentenced to up to eight years in prison. The character only appears at the beginning and in the court scene, but the actress is unrecognizable in the film. She is an excellent actress, who I liked very much in her work in the series Deadwood and then we saw her in several seasons of House of Cards.

Ben Safdie completes the cast as Chris, Martha's brother-in-law. Iliza Shlesinger plays Anita, Martha's younger sister and actress Sarah Snook, famous for starring in the HBO series Succession, plays Suzanne, a cousin of the family who is also a lawyer and will handle the criminal case against the midwife.

The controversy with Shia LaBeouf

The singer FKA Twigs, whose real name is Tahliah Debrett Barnett, filed a lawsuit on December 12 in a Los Angeles court against her partner Shia LaBeouf for sexual assault and causing her emotional distress during the time of their relationship, including recounting moments when her life was in danger due to threats and reckless acts by the actor.

This scandal, at this time of the crystal generation, may cause damage to the promotion and diffusion of the film. Immediately after the scandal hit the news, Netflix withdrew the name of Shia LaBeouf as a possible candidate for best actor in the videos they send to members of the organizations that choose the nominees.

The actor had already had domestic violence problems with his former partners, Mia Goth and Karolyn Pho. The actor has defended himself against FKA Twigs' accusations, but has acknowledged that he may have acted badly at some point in the relationship, and publicly acknowledges the problems of alcoholism and violent attacks, which have caused harm to his loved ones.

Although this is the personal life of the controversial actor, it is a factor that may affect the film and his aspirations to compete in other categories. It would be unfortunate if Vanessa Kirby's brilliant performance were not taken into account by a scandal and controversy that has nothing to do with her and the film. But we are in a time when those who are offended by any nonsense, make a whimper on social networks and end up getting what they want

The director Kornél Mundruczó is a Hungarian filmmaker, who attracted attention with his project Szép napok in 2002, worse internationally with the film Johanna in 2005 and Delta in 2008. But it was with his film Feher Isten , from the year 2014, that his name became better known. Now he brings us this powerful drama, in which he captures his full capacity as a director and gives us a couple of memorable shots. In addition, the film has as executive producer , the master Martin Scorsese.

Trailer

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