PROVOKR PICK: PIECES OF A WOMAN
Vanessa Kirby is Powerful in Oscar-Worthy Role
Vanessa Kirby delivers a powerhouse performance in Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó’s new drama Pieces of a Woman. The film centers around Boston couple Martha (Kirby) and Sean Carson (Shia LaBeouf) who lose their newborn daughter in a traumatic home birth that goes horribly awry. Over the course of the following year, Martha and Sean must figure out how to put the pieces of their lives back together and move on, whether that means together or on their own. Kata Wéber, Mundruczó’s frequent collaborator, and romantic partner, wrote the script based on her and Mundruczó’s personal experience of losing a child.
Pieces of a Woman opens with a half-hour long, harrowing home birth scene that is heart-wrenching to watch. Just when it seems everything might be all right, tragedy strikes, and the flustered midwife, Eva (Molly Parker), a replacement for their chosen midwife, notices that the baby is no longer breathing. As Martha tries to get her life back on track, her overbearing mother Elizabeth (a wonderful Ellen Burstyn), a Hungarian-Jewish Holocaust survivor, pushes Martha to press charges against the midwife for criminal negligence.
Overall, the movie paints a bleak and harrowing picture of loss and how different people approach it and grieve. However, there is one glaring thing to address. One of the film’s leads, Shia LaBoeuf, recently made headlines when his former partner FKA Twigs sued him for his allegedly abusive behavior, including sexual battery. With that news so fresh on many people’s minds, it may be challenging to watch LaBoeuf here, especially as his character lashes out violently in anger. It’s a shame that his behavior will cloud such a deeply personal, moving film. At the end of the day, though, this is Kirby’s film, watch it for the performance that is sure to make her a potential Oscars contender.
Pieces of a Woman had its world premiere at the 77th Venice International Film Festival, and also screened at the Toronto International Film Festival before Netflix acquired its distribution rights. The cast is rounded out by Sarah Snook, Iliza Shlesinger, and Benny Safdie, who provides a few beats of comedy to break the tension.
Pieces of a Woman comes out on Netflix Thursday, January 7, 2021.
