Pieces of a Woman: How a Movie About My Worst Nightmare Made My Dramaturgical Brain Short-circuit

I really, really wanted to enjoy Pieces of a Woman.

Written by Hungarian playwright Kata Weber and directed by Kornel Mondruczo, Pieces of a Woman is the latest addition to the Netflix arthouse film canon and stars Vanessa Kirby (a personal favorite from About Time and the first two seasons of The Crown) and Shia LaBeouf (where do I even start) as Martha and Sean, a couple grappling with the aftermath of a devastating home-birth in which they lost their newborn daughter.

This movie has all the makings of a tearjerker and the first half hour, about 25 minutes of which is a labor scene, was both skillfully crafted in terms of narrative and visual storytelling. I was very impressed and moved by the long and intimate portrayal of labor and childbirth, something that in films is often a few minutes of screaming, after which three-month old clean baby is handed to the sweaty mom. However, things started to unravel quickly from there due to a lack of well-developed relationships and characters, as well as inaccuracies and plot holes.

The first instance of world-breaking inaccuracy was as the labor sequence unfolded and the midwife lifts Martha’s shirt to take an ultrasound. Of course, Vanessa Kirby was not actually pregnant and was wearing a pregnancy belly, and I was truly disappointed in this prosthetic. It felt like it was made by someone who had never seen a pregnant woman in real life and was just going off the fact that their stomaches get bigger and their belly button pops out. There were no stretch marks, no visible veins, and not even a wisp of hair. Additionally, Kirby’s legs and armpits were perfectly shaved. You know what nine-month pregnant women often literally don’t have the flexibility to do, regardless of whether they even give a shit at this point? Shave their legs.

I know it is not unusual for films to gloss over some of the less flattering aspects of pregnancy and childbirth, but it was particularly egregious to do so in this film that otherwise does not shy away from the painful aspects of a postpartum life. Martha is shown wearing adult diapers, lactating through her shirts, and icing her nipples in the weeks after her pregnancy, all completely normal things that women go through. Of course, Martha’s experience is clouded by tragedy, and the film doesn’t shy away from the minutiae of her grieving experience either. Some of the most heartbreaking moments of the film are when Martha and Sean need to decide on a font for their daughter’s gravestone, what to do with her body, and how to act around concerned friends and family.

While I don’t fault the filmmakers for choosing not to have a plot-driven narrative (grief is not linear, and it would feel disingenuous for them to have a film that, for example, revolved more heavily around any concept of “getting over it”), the space normally occupied by a plot was not filled by believable relationships, and that’s what really took me out of the story. The two central relationships, between Martha and Sean as well as between Martha and Elizabeth, frankly didn’t make sense to me. Let’s start with Martha and Sean.

The first shots of the film focus on Sean, a construction worker, and Martha, whose career is not labeled, but she occupies a swanky corner office, preparing for parental leave. A part of their story is that Sean is blue-collar and Martha comes from a wealthy family, and this is one of the reasons Martha’s mom does not approve of Sean as a partner for her daughter. While I applaud the film for addressing class dynamics in a way that many American films shy away from, I still felt like we lacked a complete story of Martha and Sean to the point where it seemed like they were together on accident. It also doesn’t become clear until about an hour into the film that they aren’t married, which added to my confusion. Of course, people from different walks of life can be together, and people don’t need to be married to have a life and a child together, but considering it seemed like Martha and Sean didn’t even have anything in common, it made me imagine a one-night stand gone awry. Okay, maybe not something that dramatic or cliche, but something in the neighborhood of an unplanned pregnancy early enough in a relationship and the couple decided to keep it blah blah blah you get the picture. It made the fact that their relationship crumbled under the weight of their grief less tragic and more inevitable- I had no reason to believe they would make it through because, aside from the labor sequence, I never saw them as a functioning couple.

Then there’s the character of Elizabeth. This is about to sound very nit-picky, but we’re going there. Elizabeth is played by Ellen Burstyn, who is undoubtedly an incredible actress, but she is also 88-years-old. Vanessa Kirby is 32. From the minute they are first introduced on screen, based solely on their appearances, I did not believe they were mother and daughter. While their ages are never specified, later in the film Elizabeth delivers a stirring monologue about being born in a Hungarian ghetto during the Holocaust. The Budapest ghetto existed for LESS THAN A YEAR, from November 1944 to January 1945, which means if the film takes place in 2020 (it is unclear when the film takes place, but the technology would indicate it’s around then), than Elizabeth is approximately 76 years old. Fine. Martha’s age is never specified, but assuming she is in her early-30s, as Vanessa Kirby is, than Elizabeth would have had her when she was about 44.

Now, I know it is not impossible to have a baby at 44. You may recall that none other than Audra McDonald had a baby in 2016 at age 45. That being said, the average age of a white American mother in 1988, the year Vanessa Kirby/presumably Martha was born, was 26.3. And, arguably most importantly, one of Elizabeth’s defining characteristics is that she cares deeply what other people think of her. She is very wealthy and very image-focused, so why would she be having a baby at 44? Someone from her socioeconomic status, her Jewish community, of her age, and with her characteristics, would have been having babies in her early to mid-20s, not her mid-40s. I just do not buy it and could not get over it while I was watching the movie. I know we all should just use our imaginations and whatever, but this is filmic realism, we don’t have time for that! You can’t in the same film show a graphic depiction of a woman crowning and have an 88-year-old woman play the mother of a 32-year-old, it doesn’t read.

My list of qualms can go on and on. Other discrepancies that bothered me include, but are not limited to, a lack of clarity regarding time, under utilization of Sarah Snook as Martha’s cousin/lawyer, and no closure for Sean’s storyline.

Overall, I think this movie is an example of an unfortunately common pitfall- good actors cannot save bad writing. While there were things I genuinely enjoyed about this film, including Vanessa Kirby’s performance, the stunning and intimate cinematography, and a head on approach to a tragically under-discussed subject matter, I couldn’t get past the lack of character and relationship development. I hope that Vanessa Kirby’s performance gets the recognition it deserves and the stories of complicated pregnancy, childbirth, and maternal grief are able to find their place in mainstream media through other means.