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CASA DE LOS BABYS
by Peter Sobczynski

October 3, 2003

(out of 4 stars)

FILM CREDITS: Written and directed by John Sayles. Starring Marcia Gay Harden, Daryl Hannah, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mary Steenburgen, Susan Lynch and Lili Taylor

Independent director John Sayles has been practicing his particular do-it-yourself aesthetic of filmmaking-he writes, directs, produces, edits and (occasionally) acts in his own projects and puts whatever money he earns from those enterprises (as well as his more lucrative gigs doctoring major-studio scripts) into his next project-for so long that he was hailed as the leading light of the American indie-film movement for nearly a decade before most people knew that such a thing even existed. Over the course of 24 years and 14 years, a couple of things about his approach have become abundantly clear. As a writer (he began as a novelist), his gifts for creating complex characters and thought-provoking stories that are actually about something are unquestioned and while his well-meaning liberalism can sometimes devolve into pedantic proselytizing, his best works (such as 1991's "City of Hope", which was the movie that "The Bonfire of the Vanities" wanted to be) are as deep, rich and detailed as the finest novels. As a director, though, he is still a great writer-after all this time, his filmmaking skills are still fairly rudimentary and while he has a knack for getting fine performances out of his actors, he sometimes has the tendency to simply plop them in front of the camera and let them talk instead of making the effort to find a more cinematic way of telling his stories. Because of these limitations, his films tend to live and die entirely on the strengths of the scripts. When they are strong (such as with "City of Hope", "Brother From Another Planet", "Sunshine State" and the first half of "Limbo"), the films are strong but when they are weak or too obviously wearing their hearts on their sleeve (such as the draggy mess "Men With Guns"), the results can be pretty damned unbearable.

Although it isn't as bad as "Men with Guns", "Casa de los Babys", his latest effort, is definitely one of his weaker efforts to date. This is a film that wants to take a look at the everyday life among the natives of a poor, unnamed South American country-a place that is so impoverished that the best hope for a better life that many can provide for their infants is to have them adopted by Americans ("Our greatest exports.")-and examine the pros and cons that crop up when they, in fact, are adopted. Sure, the children have a chance for a prosperous, squalor-free life but it is a chance that comes at the cost of losing their own cultural identity in the process. These are two intriguing notions for a film and I can see how they could be pulled together into a provocative piece of agitprop-imagine "Traffic" with adoption as the issue instead of drugs-but Sayles here doesn't really seem to have any notions of how to approach the material. Instead of trying to weave them together, he develops two parallel plotlines that occasionally bounce up against each other. Half of the film is a documentary-like look at the people of this country-from the privileged classes like the lawyers and the hotel owners to the lower-level servants, unemployed workers and street kids who spend their days wiping windshields, stealing purses and huffing paint fumes-and the other half concentrates on six women (Marcia Gay Harden, Mary Steenburgen, Lili Taylor, Susan Lynch, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Daryl Hannah) who have spent countless weeks in the country waiting for their adoptions to come through (According to the laws of this land, the mother has to spend an indeterminate amount of time waiting in country for "the process" to go through-basically a scam in order to pry more money from the desperate gringos).

The problem is that of the two stories, I was only interested in the sequences detailing life in the country. Sayles has a genuine gift for creating an genuine sense of place and time in his films and even though his film is set in a fictional country, it looks and feels authentic enough to pass as documentary. Unfortunately, the frankly theatrical nature of the six women-each one even gets their very own character-revealing monologue-keeps intruding on the realistic tone of the other scenes and they never wind up meshing together in any meaningful manner. Matters aren't helped by the fact that while the actresses are all talented and game, the usually reliable Sayles has provided them with roles that aren't very interesting or, in the case of Harden (who gets to play the Ugly American role), surprisingly one-note.

Another problem is the oddly truncated feel of the film. In his past films, Sayles has made either intimate character studies with only a couple of major roles (such as "Passion Fish" or "Lianna") or large-scale panoramas with a large cast of characters ("City of Hope" and "Sunshine State"). Here, he tries to blend the two approaches and the results simply do not work. The scope of his story is pretty sweeping but he tries to cram it all into only 93 minutes and when you are watching the film, you keep getting the sense that important developments and ideas (the political ramifications of the adoptions are raised and quickly abandoned) were deleted somewhere along the way-since Sayles works independently, I presume that he wasn't forced to delete material for a shorter running time and can only conclude that he inexplicably meant it to be like that. (It is especially annoying when he then wastes precious screen time on such dopiness as a street urchin yearning to read or an unemployed worker-whose greatest dream is to visit Philadelphia ("It is the cradle of democracy.")-who may hold a winning lottery ticket.) And while he made provocative use of an ambiguous ending at the climax of "Limbo" (where it was used to make the point that when history is told, the viewpoint of the storyteller has as much effect, if not more, on the outcome as the facts), his attempt to use a similar finale here is just annoying-this is a story that could use resolution at the end and if he couldn't come up with any, perhaps he shouldn't have tried to tell it in the first place.

I like John Sayles-he is smart and provocative and he is one of the few filmmakers around who is willing to take a political stand through their art at a time when many try to remove any such tendencies in order to appeal to the largest audience possible. However, there are times when it seems as though the idea of someone like John Sayles is better than his actual output. (In the music world, this is known as the "Ani DiFranco conundrum".) Sayles has made great movies before and I have no doubt that he will continue to do so but for all of his good intentions, "Casa de los Babys" simply isn't one of those great films.

-- PETER SOBCZYNSKI

Copyright © 2003 Peter Sobczynski
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While the views expressed by Peter Sobczynski do not necessarily reflect the views of Criticdoctor.com, the Critic Doctor will occasionally examine Mr. Sobczynski's film reviews to bring forth an honest examination of those views expressed.