Pieces of a Woman is bookended by two sequences that touch on everything it was aiming for, but it never comes together to be that emotionally moving, Oscar movie it desperately wants to be.
Hitting Netflix this week comes the Vanessa Kirby led, Pieces of a Woman. A drama that chronicles the events from a heartbreaking home birth, to a conclusion that may bring some audience members a few tears. Pieces of a Woman is directed by Kornél Mundruzcó, and also stars Shia LaBeouf and Ellen Burston.
When it comes to films centered around the drama between struggling family members, the most important goal is to get the audience invested in those relationships. Whether it’s the mother-daughter, husband-wife relationship, allowing us to feel that tension through the dialogue between them is pivotal. Unfortunately, Pieces of a Woman doesn’t quite grip us as much as the camera thinks it is. Much of the film takes its time letting Martha (Kirby) try to keep herself together as her husband, Sean (LaBeouf), and mother, Elizabeth (Burston), plot to keep Martha indirectly involved in serving justice as they see fit. On paper this is as enticing as it sounds, but the script can’t maintain the tension.
After the opening sequence that is sure to leave everyone stirring, it gets in deep with very basic developments regarding finding yourself amidst tragedy. It checks many familiar, uncomfortable boxes that aren't delivered any different than any of these other movies in the genre. This is where LaBeouf gets a lot of time to really try for an Oscar nomination, and it doesn’t work. The role could have been played by just about anyone, and much of the character’s material is very predictable and uninteresting. There are times when the tragedy begins to draw the two leads together to evolve the drama, but it never crescendos. Perhaps it was an artistic choice to make them cold and distant characters, but it doesn’t benefit anything the movie is trying to be. Which is essentially a movie trying to be an avenue for relaying the significance of communication in relationships.
This comes in an important, Oscars fueled sequence towards the end of the film that has every actor… acting. It all feels very plastic and engineered to make the audience feel every ounce of upsetting material up to that point poured into one scene, but it doesn’t work. Kirby is admittedly at a high point here, and she sells some rather cliché moments that’ll play great in a nomination clip this February. It’s a matter of the fact that you can see the movie trying to yank an emotion out of you, but it has become such a trope in these movies, it becomes really hard to take it seriously.
On a more positive note, the cinematography in this film is stunning. Twitter will love the long take sequence at the beginning of the film, but the cinematography shines when it observes the characters going through their emotional plot points afterwards. For as harsh as I am about the script and the dialogue, the camerawork manages to exude every bit of the aching drama it wants you to. Whether it’s tightly knit frames of distant emotions, or gazing at a fleeting moment of reprieve, Pieces of a Woman has the right idea in mind when it wants to explore human emotions through its camerawork. Which is also a huge testament to Vanessa Kirby as an actress. When she burst onto the scene in Mission: Impossible - Fallout as an action star, I was unsure where her career would go next, but this was more than a welcome surprise. In this vehicle for her range, she has breathtaking screen presence and an ability to sell a moment as any great actress could. She deserves to be in many more movies, and if this is her first Oscar nomination, I hope it is the beginning of many to come.
As with most movies released on streaming services in 2020, Pieces of a Woman is divisive. Which would be great if Wonder Woman 1984 didn’t exhaust the beauty of a divisive movie two weeks ago. What I appreciate about this movie above a great lead performance and some tremendous cinematography, is how it’ll certainly challenge many viewers and how they’ll react to the material. For myself (and what seems to be a sizable crowd of other people), it is just okay at best. For others, this movie is going to greatly affect them. I can see the seeds of what many will end up loving, but I can’t overcome its chaptered structure, writing, and performances that are really trying to show you that they can ACT. Pieces of a Woman viscerally collides with the immediate and lasting moments of life after tragedy, and provokes the audience through troubling, morally grey moments. The issues come from how underwritten all of it is. There is never a time when any of it feels convincing, except for the conclusion. Which is admittedly a very touching moment that allows us to relish in the growth of life as it breaks through the hardened grounds of tragedy.