Cheryl Heilman

On the recommendation to watch this from my 16 year old son, I was anticipating more guns than glory from Martin. How far from the truth could I have been! The last sentence uttered in the movie will forever haunt me. Who was the person who uttered those words…one must decide on their own. The acting, writing, cinematography, musical score and direction were simply stellar. It is a shame that the genre doesn’t try more to emulate this brilliance. I can understand why it is one movie to watch before you die.

I wanted to love this movie. But at times I almost burst out laughing (not that it was intentionally funny). How a poor family…then abandoned young girl survive …with nary a hair out of place or dirt under her nails explains the fantastical ride I felt I was on. How the publisher at her trial offered her carte blanc publishing rights to any future work on obscure details in nature…well, everything was tied up in a pretty bow. There are many, many fantastical elements of this story which cloud the intense relationship this young woman forged to survive domestic abuse, abandonment, poverty and the threats of removing her from the only space she truly knew. Disney meets the swamp. Disney wins.

The film and its amazing actresses provide a tapestry of shadows of the meaning of motherhood. The strength of the director’s willingness to provide context without black and white answers is refreshing. I was drawn to the film as a child of an unnatural mother, and through this two hour exploration, I was able to see different aspects of how society has fostered heavy expectations of the mother role from the lens of such a mother. Not a subject that often finds its way onto the big screen. The decisions Leda takes in her relationship with Nina as the accomplished academic adult she is, to me, shows the viewer the depth of the wound of “unnaturalness”.