rredhead
Senior Member
Registered: April 2005
Location: California
Posts: 450
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Review Date: Sun August 13, 2006
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: None indicated
| Rating: 6
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Pros:
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honest, interesting, seems like real life
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Cons:
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too short, some women given nothing to do, the end
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Casa de los Babys takes place on one day in a South American country (presumably Guatemala). Six American women from different backgrounds have been staying in country for months, at one hotel, waiting to be matched with their children. The hotel manager, her son, and one teenage maid are featured, as are three street kids, a pregnant teenager and her mother, and a father of six who is trying to get to the US.
Half of the movie is in Spanish with subtitles. However, I did not find that to be a problem; the Spanish reinforced the reality. I found Casa de los Babys to be intriguing, easy to watch, and emotional. I could really see the kids who have to sniff aerosol cans to stay warm, while most of the American women think nothing of dropping hundreds of dollars each day. One of the six women, who is Irish (Eileen, played by Susan Lynch), catches one of the street kids trying to steal her purse. She doesn't have very much money, and hasn't been eating so she can afford to stay at the hotel. However, she buys the child a book. But, the child can't read.
There are a lot of disconnects like that. Eileen tells the maid (Asuncion, played by Vanessa Martinez) about her dreams of parenthood. Asuncion then pours her heart out to Eileen, but Asuncion cannot speak English, and Eileen cannot speak Spanish, so neither woman understands the other.
One woman, Skipper (played by Daryl Hannah), has so little to do, you wonder why she's even there. Nan (played by Marcia Gay Harden) hates everything about the country, and is a compulsive liar, so the end of the movie brought up a lot of questions in my mind. Aside from Eileen, none of the women are really allowed to be full bodied characters. The native characters are more real here.
I think this is a great movie, and recommend it to everyone, regardless of the type of adoption they are pursuing.
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-Robyn
mom to Jackson, b. 17 January 2006
private, domestic, open adoption
Antioch, CA
Child #1: Is that your mother?
Child #2: Yes.
Child #1: Why is she white and you are black?
Child #2: Because I am adopted, and black people have more melanin than white people do.
Child #1: Oh, let's go on the high bars.
-Unknown
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