Casa de los Babys
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Amanda Álvarez, Angelina Peláez, Lizzie Curry Martinez, Said Martinez, Vanessa MartinezBrand: Sony
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 95 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-04-13
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of Casa de los Babys
Movie Review: Complex political and social tale that can be viewed on many levels
Summary: 5 Stars
Written and directed by John Sayles, this is the story of six women who go to a Latin American country to adopt babies. As in other films by this master of cinema, it is not a simple story with a simple ending. Instead, it is a complex political and social tale that can be viewed on many levels.
There is poverty in the country and hard working people. Many of them work at a luxury hotel, owned by Rita Moreno, now actually 73 years old, speaking only in Spanish and looking very nipped and tucked and prosperous. Her brother is the local lawyer. Her son is a political radical who hates the fact that the babies are being taken away. The six women who must wait several months for their babies come from varied backgrounds and each has her own story to tell. There's Lili Taylor who's tired of waiting for a relationship to blossom and wants to have a baby right away. There's Daryl Hannah, who looks gorgeous and works out and is into massage and health food. Later we find out that she's been through three traumatic birth experiences with babies who just didn't make it. There's Maggie Gyllenhal, who's only 24 years old and has gone through lots of fertility procedures to no avail. There's Susan Lynch, who comes from a large Irish family but who is unable to conceive. There's Mary Steenburgen who is the oldest and most religious of the group and is a former alcoholic. There is also Marcia Gay Harden who is indeed the "ugly American". She complains about everything, tries to bribe the lawyer and comes across as racist. And then there is Vanessa Martinez who plays a chambermaid who has given up a baby for adoption several years before.
Another important element in this film are all the "extras", the real people from Acapulco, where this movie was made. There are also some important small roles given to some of the little boys who live on the street. I found their plight the most heart wrenching of all and wondered what happened to them after the film was made. We see them living in cardboard boxes, washing windshields and stealing. And then we see them sniffing paint thinner. It made the whole subject of cross-cultural adoption even more poignant because if the babies weren't adopted, they would likely wind up like these poor homeless boys. In one scene one of the women gives a child's book to one of the boys. He's easily 8 or 9 years old, but he can only look at the pictures, because, like his companions, he has never learned to read.
We see some flashes of the babies who are waiting for adoption but basically but we never actually get to see them with their new mothers. Wisely, John Sayles stayed away from that kind of syrupy sweetness. Instead, he gave us a hard look at the many perspectives surrounding this film.
There were no less than three 20-minute extra featurettes on the DVD. I learned that the actresses lived together in one big house during the filming and how wonderful that bonding experience was for them. I learned that John Sayles made a massive effort to show the Latin American point of view. In fact, he even mentioned that he had starting thinking about making this film when he made "Men With Guns" which is a chilling film about cruelty and death. Casa de los Babys on the other hand, is poignant in its own way but it addressed many of the same issues. I applaud his sensitivity and the many dimensions he is able to capture through his art. The problem with these three DVD features, however, is that each of them had most of the same footage. I kept watching and watching, hoping that there would be some new material, but it was the essentially the same material, just reworked in different ways. I would suggest therefore, that if you do see the DVD, that watching only one of these small features would be sufficient.
This is a good film. And an important one. It made me think. And that is good.
Summary of Casa de los Babys
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