The opening portion of Pieces of a Woman (which takes up roughly the first quarter) is one of the roughest sequences I’ve seen in a movie in a long time. It’s an extensive, supremely detailed, and harrowing home birth scene that rivals even the similarly traumatic labour in Roma, itself one of the most intense movie moments I’ve ever seen. I don’t know that this tops it, but it is just as uncomfortable and visceral, and likely triggering for anyone who has gone through the horror of an infant loss or miscarriage. It’s shot with a documentary-like precision, handheld with few cuts, and very even pacing throughout as the stakes gradually escalate and new problems begin arising at each new juncture along the process. You watch through your fingers at times or with your hand over your mouth, because its’ inevitable what’s coming -and yet the film keeps you entrapped in this mortifying circumstance. Even the respites only give way to more tragedy.
But for as harsh as this is, it’s necessary to inform all that comes after in the chief subject of the film: the emotional and psychological impact of such a trauma on the mother. Pieces of a Woman was written by Kata Wéber, basing it on her own experience losing a child; and directed by her partner Kornél Mundruczó, the father, in his English-language debut. So the subject matter is pretty close to the filmmakers on this one. They apply a very reserved, naturalistic touch to everything following the inciting incident, shocking you through the banality that comes in the footsteps of loss. High emotions are only to be found in the people around Martha (Vanessa Kirby), while she herself is perennially detached, a ghost in her own life.
Kirby’s performance is stirringly raw as this woman wracked with an enormous amount of guilt, remorse, sorrow, and longing concealed just enough beneath a veneer of apathy. It’s a terribly difficult task to convey such deep and lasting malaise, yet Kirby is up to the challenge, under-acting her way through much of the movie, though always the most compelling figure on screen. She has the occasional outburst of frustration, such as one intense argument with her mother (a terrific Ellen Burstyn) over the legal case the family has embroiled themselves in -keeping the pain alive for her long after she’d rather stop thinking about it; but she never shows any despair -that remains firmly bottled up inside. Nonetheless, it’s palpable how heartbroken she is and how she is desperately in need of therapy.
Greater levels of expressive anguish though come from her husband Sean, an extremely working-class construction man played by Shia LaBeouf, in admittedly one of his stronger performances that I’ve seen. His open distress makes up for his wife’s lack of it, and as much as he’s a crummy person who ignores and is abusive with Martha, has a cocaine addiction, and doesn’t hesitate to start an affair with their lawyer (Sarah Snook), you can’t help but sympathize on some level with what he’s going through -though it becomes increasingly clear he and Martha should never have even tried to have a baby together. Apart from the aforementioned Burstyn, and Molly Parker as the well-meaning midwife being scapegoated for the death, there aren’t a lot of significant characters -though that doesn’t stop Mundruczó from casting the small parts with interesting people, such as Iliza Schlesinger and director Benny Safdie as friends of the family, and Jimmie Fails (from The Last Black Man in San Francisco) as a co-worker and possible new love interest of Martha’s.
Each of these actors work very well with the naturalism that is infused throughout the movie, a naturalism that reminds me distinctly of John Cassavettes and particularly A Woman Under the Influence (admittedly, one of the only Cassavettes films I’ve seen) –notably in one blow-up in front of a gathering of friends. It’s a naturalism that favours the script and the actors better than it does the story and structure though, and it’s not terribly ingratiating to viewers. The authenticity is such at times that the movies’ dreariness in atmosphere becomes difficult to endure after a while. It’s themes become somewhat stretched and its’ commitment to dwell in Marthas’ quiet misery deprives it of more interesting conversations and observations it might make. The legal case especially feels underdeveloped –the trial in the climax is the first time since the delivery that we even see Parker’s character.
I understand how that side of the story isn’t very interesting to the filmmakers, it’s not very interesting to Martha even, who’s mostly been pressured into it by her mother and husband. Though it does make for the most engaging part of the movie after that opening half hour, forcing Martha to confront what happened and reveal her feelings on the matter. Wéber allows Martha emotionality here and gives Kirby a moving speech, the end result of mature inquiry and soul searching, that is a little out of place given the context and timeline, but works effectively at resolving her grief while maintaining the permanence of the trauma.
And that is the main goal of Pieces of a Woman: to validate the trauma of losing a child. It accomplishes this most immediately in forcing us to bear witness to that trauma early on; and then reinforces it through the behavioural and psychological toll we see its effects taking on our avatar character. The title implies the devastating wound fragments her, and that she must put herself back together, to heal and keep living. The film doesn’t communicate this as thoroughly as it might, but it does come across in the end. Until then, the acting showcase and unrelenting honesty, both attached to considerable weight, is enough to resonate –not in a pleasant way, but a significant way nonetheless.
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