CASA DE LOS BABYS Rating: (out of 5 stars) Director: John Sayles Producers: Lemore Syvan, Alejandro Springall Writer: John Sayles Director of Photography: Mauricio Rubinstein Cast: Daryl Hannah, Lili Taylor, Maggie Gyllenhall, Marcia Gay Harden, Mary Steenburgen, Susan Lynch, Rita Moreno Visit the IMDB page for full cast and crew

(Read the interview with director John Sayles.)

Review by: Warren Curry
9/16/03

Whenever I see a John Sayles' film, I always feel like I emerge from the experience a better person. His movies have an intelligence, integrity and intimacy that's hard to find in cinema these days, not to mention a total lack of pretension, which can sometimes make this sort of highbrow fare difficult to stomach. But if his last two films are any indication, Sayles also appears to have lost the desire to, on a very basic level, entertain his audience. Like his previous Sunshine State, Casa de los Babys is an ensemble piece without any completely engaging characters or much in the way of a narrative hook. But it's also a well made, low-key film that has too much going for it in the way of sensitivity and sincerity to dismiss.

Set in an unspecified Latin American country (it was shot in Acapulco), Casa de los Babys looks at the plight of six Caucasian American women, who have set up a temporary community in this foreign location, while they wait for their chance to adopt a baby. The women are of varying personality types, which include, to name a few, the athletic and private Skipper (Darryl Hannah), the young, sensitive and not entirely stable Jennifer (Maggie Gyllenhall) and the older, ornery and somewhat desperate Nan (Marcia Gay Harden). The women stay at a hotel run by Senora Munoz (Rita Moreno), whose brother is the lawyer that handles the adoptions and whose son is a wannabe mini-terrorist with a total disdain for the idea of Americans infiltrating his country and leaving with children.

The clashing of cultures is an element of the story that Sayles explores, but he might have served the film better by just presenting it. Sayles is at his worst as an artist when his polemics become obviously exposed due to the transparency of his vehicle, and that flaw rears its head on several occasions in Casa. The point he's making about the plundering of another country's natural resources by the U.S. comes across too simplistically -- his didactic sociopolitical views never mesh well enough into the context of the narrative to not awkwardly stick out.

Speaking of the narrative, it introduces too many characters in too short a span of time. (The film runs a mere 95 minutes.) This brevity doesn't allow Sayles the opportunity to build the characters in a completely relatable way -- we're given snippets of their personalities but are unable to really get to know them. As with most of the director's output, Casa has a bland visual construction, but at this point in his career, it's safe to assume that this is a purposeful decision.

However, there are moments that work exquisitely, most notably a scene between Eileen (Susan Lynch), a shy Irish-American woman who is a potential adoptee and Asuncion (Vanessa Martinez), a young maid in Senora Munoz's hotel, who recently gave her baby up for adoption. The women engage in a revealing conversation, explicitly laying out their fears and misgivings, yet they are both speaking a language the other can't understand. It's a touching scene that powerfully and succinctly sums up what Sayles is trying to accomplish with this film.

Casa de los Babys can feel like a labored 95 minutes, but there's an involving undercurrent and an obvious passion with which this film was made. At this stage of his career, Sayles's movies feel to be more an extension of his body of work than truly separate entities, meaning that Casa will be most appreciated by existing fans. Others would be advised to start with his best film, Matewan, and proceed from there.

(An IFC Films release. Opens in New York and Los Angeles on September 19, 2003. Expands to more cities at later dates.)

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