Pieces of a Woman (2021) Review
Pieces of a Woman is is a melodrama that displays the fallout between a woman and her husband following a miscarriage during a home birth; or at least that’s what the screenwriter, Kata Weber, and director, Kornél Mundruczó, want you to think initially. The film opens with an incredible long take during the home birth —in which Vanessa Kirby cements herself as a powerhouse to be reckoned with; she will continue to receive deserved praise for this role and I have no doubt that this has opened many more opportunities for her. But after the thirty minute opening, after which I thought I was hooked, the film slowly (but surely) derails into an unfocused mess that has no idea what it wants to say.
In the initial opening, Sean (played by Shia LaBeouf) is introduced as an aggressive construction worker but a supportive husband back home. Opening a film about female trauma with a man feels like a red flag in general —but I was willing to give the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt. Then after the initial gripping introduction and title card, the film divulges into everything I feared it would be; an aimless melodrama that focuses more on the problematic uninteresting characters around our protagonist. But when the film is in control of itself —Vanessa Kirby absolutely kills it and almost convinces me it is worth the two hour runtime; even if the finale somehow ends up as a courtroom drama monologue. It is these cheap tactics that make the movie so uninteresting; there’s so many seemingly dense pieces at play here and the screenwriter/director choose to constantly take the easy road out.
The core of the movie is simple —but it’s the character study that’s intricate and what this film fails miserably at. It’s one thing to show someone suffer; it’s another to convey what that means to an audience. I didn’t care about Sean’s struggle once he assaulted Martha (Kirby) and started cheating on her; another plotline that ends up going nowhere and felt like it was another cheap tactic thrown in to engage audiences on a very superficial level. I don’t mind seeing an unlikeable character onscreen but this isn’t what this movie should have focused on and it heavily detracts from the much stronger parts of the film. On top of that, after everything that has come to light about LaBeouf recently, it was uncomfortable seeing him play an abuser onscreen as well.
The other convoluted direction this film embarks on is that of becoming a cheap courtroom drama based around the midwife’s failure in delivering Martha’s child successfully. Though this is an interesting subject —it is one that feels unwelcome in this narrative and piles onto the rest of the “padding” throughout the film. The midwife (Molly Parker) doesn’t even return again until the final courtroom scene so there’s no chance of the audience even getting to know her struggle or side of the story; leaving that plotline unsatisfying as well. I understand what the filmmakers were trying to achieve and this is one that feels like it should have been a focused ninety minutes or a sprawling three hour journey diving into each character; either would have felt more rewarding. Or just stick with the first thirty minutes as a short film.
Screenwriter, Kata Weber, and director, Kornel Mundruczo, based this story on losing their own child. I imagine unearthing so much pain can be very intense, especially when translating that into your art -- but a healing process nonetheless as well. Being able to convey these emotions so clearly, the internal chaos and bipolarity included, and that’s when Pieces of a Woman excels. Kirby’s performance is one that subtly evolves with Martha and her journey -- but it feels as if the rest of the film just can’t keep up.
The filmmakers say they wanted to start the film with Sean on the unbuilt bridge in order to end the film with Martha on the completed one. It’s not subtle and the lack of nuance is detrimental to how the film reads; as if it thinks so little of its audience when it doesn’t actually have anything it wants to say beyond the surface level. There’s so much of this movie here that I want to love but even just writing this up makes me think so much less of it. It’s a film with potential for sure -- but I really do think it’s Vanessa Kirby’s performance carrying the entirety of the picture. If I were you, I’d watch the initial 30 minutes and treat it as a short film; it’s a brilliant one.
