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Casa de los Babys (2003)
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Reviews Counted:28
Fresh:16
Rotten:12
Average Rating:5.9/10
Consensus: Well-acted and thought provoking, if not completely satisfying.
Theatrical Release:Sep 19, 2003 Limited
Box Office: $312,136
Synopsis: A group of six women from the United States, each of whom wants to adopt a baby, are checked into a hotel in South America waiting for the paperwork to go through. As their wait stretches on for... A group of six women from the United States, each of whom wants to adopt a baby, are checked into a hotel in South America waiting for the paperwork to go through. As their wait stretches on for weeks, they each get to know each other, sharing their hopes and fears. Meanwhile, the film explores every layer of people who are effected by the industry--from the teenage girls who give their babies up for adoption to the nurses that care for them as they're being assigned to new mothers. The local homeless boys sniffing paint in the street clearly don't receive the parenting they deserve, and yet the hotel staff dealing with the wealthy U.S. mothers-to-be sees a different side of the story--these women may not make for competent moms. Actresses Marcia Gay Harden (as the wonderfully difficult Nan), Maggie Gyllenhaal (as the painfully naive Jennifer), Daryl Hannah (as the quietly new agey Skipper), Susan Lynch (as the humble and loving Eileen), Lili Taylor (as the tough and jaded Leslie), and Mary Steenburgen (as the graceful optimist Gayle) are outstanding together, displaying loads of talent and illustrating Sayles' knack for character development. A touching look at what it means to enter motherhood, complicated by issues of class, politics, and pure emotion, CASA DE LOS BABYS is a thorough and pensive film that only a skilled director like John Sayles could create in such a seamlessly effective way. [More]
Starring: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Marcia Gay Harden, Daryl Hannah, Lili Taylor
Starring: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Marcia Gay Harden, Daryl Hannah, Lili Taylor, Susan Lynch, Vanessa Martinez, Rita Moreno, Mary Steenburgen
Director: John Sayles
Director: John Sayles
Screenwriter: John Sayles
Producer: Lemore Syvan, Alejandro Springall
Composer: Mason Daring
Studio: IFC Films
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Reviews for Casa de los Babys
It is a story without a story, helpless and wandering, enjoyable for its parts but failing as a whole.
If most of the characters seem underdeveloped, they are also convincing and interesting.
Suggests a filmmaker whose vision has become reductive, motivated not by all-embracing interest but by an ultimately self-protective intent not to surrender to blind emotion in any form.
[Sayles] does more showing than his usual telling, without forsaking his interest in people and the histories and societies that have created their problems.
If Casa de los Babys isn't necessarily a fully realized film, it's still a deeply felt glimpse into dizzyingly complex political and psychological forces that shape the most crucial decisions of a woman's life.
For all his patient, accumulative storytelling, Sayles yields little that doesn't feel trite or overly schematic.
Sayles sees like a documentarian, showing us the women, listening to their stories, inviting us to share their hopes and fears and speculate about their motives.
A powerfully written, well-acted movie that tackles an unusual and compelling subject.
[Sayles] concentrates on the six tiresome Americans ... at the expense of their Latin hosts who, to a one, are much much more interesting and worthy of our time.
[Casa de los Babys] wanders and stumbles in search of a center, but it finds plenty of goods along the way.
Eschewing all sentiment, avoiding all pathos, keeping his film and most of the women hard as nails, [Sayles] manages to tell a compelling story.
In this single film, [Sayles] includes more vividly drawn female characters than I've seen in a year's worth of major releases.
I spent most of the 95-minute running time of Casa trying to distinguish between some of the actresses from my previous image of them.
Its greatest achievement is to insist that we, the relatively lucky, do what fear and pride seldom allow us to do -- to venture back to life's opening scene, respinning the wheel and replaying the lottery.
There isn't a moment with this group you don't want to be watching, yet the dialogue floats by in wisps.
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 66% 66% | Public Enemies |
| 83% 83% | Harry Potter and the H… |
| 44% 44% | Night at the Museum: B… |
| 75% 75% | Julie & Julia |
| 32% 32% | Terminator Salvation |
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 90% 90% | District 9 |
| 86% 86% | 500 Days of Summer |
| 63% 63% | Extract |
| 06% 06% | All About Steve |
| 78% 78% | It Might Get Loud |
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