Unlike many Hollywood films, I find that foreign films render the complexity of characters and relationships more akin to real life, and so it is in "The Midwife." The film also excels in giving us a context for the fraught relationship of the two women leads, Claire and Beatrice, but not with easy flashbacks or an improbable verbal summary; instead, their history unfolds the way it would in real life--in bits of dialogue that not only bring up the past but show us how, although buried by Claire and superficially dismissed by Beatrice, it has lingered sufficiently to scar them and to force them to come to new terms in addressing their present situation. I love the dimensionality of Claire: she has a job she loves (midwife in a hospital) but it's threatened by the hospital's drive for technology that will bring greater profits; she has a son who is also complex; a hobby (gardening); a fraught relationship with her mother; memories of her father that are both painful and loving. In short, she is a full- fledged human being. This is a fine film that centers on people, not violent or titillating events.
Review of The Midwife
