Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		1.0
Audio		2.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		1.5

Motherhood Blu-ray Movie Review

Someone should market this film as birth control.

Reviewed by Dustin Somner February 22, 2010

Hollywood’s depiction of family life rarely mirrors the real-world trappings of raising children. Mothers and fathers that populate the television world are often portrayed as happy individuals sitting around the breakfast table with obedient children nibbling on a bowl of cereal. After whisking the youngsters off to school, the parents proceed with their daily occupations that typically lack constant disturbances by their precious children. At the end of the day, dad pulls into the driveway, walks up to the front door, and there’s little Jimmy waiting with two baseball gloves and a huge grin on his face. After rustling the hair of his boy, the cheerful father walks triumphantly into the kitchen to give his wife a peck on the cheek and grab a taste of the spaghetti sauce warming on the stove (which his 5-year old daughter helped prepare). As nice as that probably sounds, the show eventually ends, and you’re left wondering why your life can’t feel more like the television version of happiness. Motherhood throws those happy-go-lucky notions of child-rearing out the window, by presenting viewers with a single day in the life of a stressed out mother on the verge of a mid-life crisis.

Mommy's not a happy camper...

Eliza Welsh (Uma Thurman) is the victim of her own routines. Coinciding with the birth of her first child Clara (Daisy Tahan), Eliza gave up her career as a fiction writer to dedicate her entire life to raising her children and supporting the career of her husband (Anthony Edwards). Now that Clara is about to turn six, Eliza arrives at the realization that her existence has been reduced to a daily pattern of mundane tasks. She wakes up, feeds the kids, moves the car, takes the dog out, and attempts to maintain order in their increasingly cramped apartment. On the morning of her daughter’s sixth birthday, Eliza discovers a glimmer of hope when she stumbles upon an online writing contest, with the winner promised a paid position as a columnist for a children’s publication. Viewing this opportunity as her chance to regain a foothold on the life she once thought possible, Eliza searches within herself for an answer to the meaning of motherhood. What she eventually finds (through a series of chance encounters) is a realization that life throws curveballs 99% of the time, and it’s how we adjust to the incoming pitch that defines who we are.

Motherhood began with an interesting concept and quickly lost steam. The idea of presenting the trials and tribulations of parenting in a more transparent and realistic light is refreshing, but the ultimate execution of Katherine Dieckmann’s screenplay fails to get her point across. For an hour and a half, we witness one emotional breakdown after another, as every situation presents an insurmountable barrier to Eliza’s happiness. Whether it’s an argument with someone over not picking up after her dog, a yelling match with a contractor asking that she to move her car, or a verbal jousting match with a fellow mother at the playground, Eliza comes across as an extremely flawed character. I’d imagine most individuals would seek professional help after their fifth crying fit of the day, making us question the sanity of this “stressed” mom. If the film truly set out to present a realistic view on motherhood, Dieckmann should have created a character we can relate to. I know several mothers with young children, and none of them strike me as a basket case.

Aside from questionable choices in the portrayal of Eliza, I had trouble understanding the direction the film was moving in. What begins as an uncomfortable comedy with off-putting characters around every corner eventually descends into a tragedy (literally in a matter of minutes). Eliza jumps in the car, tells her husband she wants a divorce, and heads out of town. Of course she doesn’t make it very far, but that particular scene came across as the pinnacle of selfishness, making it difficult to continue rooting for her afterwards. Adding to the irony, Eliza accuses her husband of not “looking at her THAT way anymore”, when he just propositioned her two hours prior (and was turned down). She also berates him for not doing enough around the house, and expresses her anger over letting her quite the career she loved. These are real-life concerns that plague a number of marriages, but aside from the husband’s absent-minded nature, the film depicts him spending far more time with the children than Eliza does (he only works two to three hours a day as an editor). In fact, when Eliza is speeding out of town in the family station wagon, the “selfish” husband is walking his son in a stroller. It’s difficult to feel sorry for someone as delusional as Eliza, and I’d imagine most mothers will find it hard to connect with the burdening manner in which she views her family.

In closing, I should mention my disappointment with the ending of the film (spoiler alert). After recovering from a typical married-couple fight, Eliza arrives at the decision to submit her entry for the contest and pursue the columnist position. She and her husband come to the conclusion that they’ve both made tremendous sacrifices by choosing to raise a family, and seemingly arrive at an understanding that the grass is always greener on the other side. If the film intended to convey the unselfish nature of parenting, I can’t understand why Katherine Dieckmann decided to throw in a preposterous scene with the husband stumbling onto a thrown-out book worth $24,000 dollars. He presents the check to Eliza and suggests she take some time to herself while pursuing a career. This sole action deflated the entire concept of the film, because Eliza never truly found happiness with her children. She merely relented in her dreams of a former life, and stumbled into a temporary means of happiness. Without the benefit of a legitimate closing payoff to the story, the ending serves as the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Motherhood Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in 1080i utilizing the AVC codec (at an average bitrate of 23Mbps), Motherhood offers an extremely soft visual presentation from start to finish. In fact, the dismal lack of fine object detail had me wondering if this was merely a repurposed standard definition transfer, passed off as a high-definition product. Paying close attention to facial textures, you'll struggle to find a single crevice, blemish, or mark, as if every subtle miscue had been air-brushed into oblivion. The lack of film grain left me with the impression this could be a result of digital noise reduction, but I'd wager a portion of the problem lies in overly soft film elements. Adding to the problematic nature of the transfer, it appears there's a degree of brightness boosting which obscures the saturation levels of the color spectrum. This allows other unfortunate side effects to surface, such as black levels that never descend below dark gray, and contrast differentiation that remains incapable of accurately separating varying shades within the image. On a positive note, transfers this poor erase any concerns over digital anomalies such as artifacting, aliasing, or edge-enhancement, allowing us to focus 100% of our attention on the dismal level of clarity.

Motherhood Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Further diminishing the merits of the technical presentation on the disc, the primary lossless audio track is uninspired from right from the get-go. I never detected a single element hit the rear sound stage, leaving the front speakers burdened with the entire load. This isn't entirely problematic since the majority of the audio experience consists of dialog and music, but I found it strange that the track never kicked things up a notch. Two particular scenes make use of loud music (one with the courier, and the other during Clara's birthday party), but instead of incorporating the entire spectrum of my home theater, the music emerged solely from the front surrounds. I can't fathom why the separation was doled out in such a weak manner, but the end result is nothing short of disappointing. Dialog fares slightly better than the musical attributes, delivering crisp lines that rarely fall below a certain volume threshold. There are still several instances where conversations seem a bit muffled, but those sparse occurrences weren't egregious enough to warrant a tremendous downgrade in my overall score.

Motherhood Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Interviews (1080i, Dolby Digital 2.0, 15:27 min): Consisting of interview clips with Uma Thurman, Minnie Driver, Anthony Edwards, and writer/director Katherine Dieckmann, this supplement focuses on the relationships between characters in the film, the flawed attributes of each role, and general life lessons. Out of the various discussions, I found Uma Thurman's take on real-life motherhood the most interesting.

Rounding out the extras, we have a high-definition trailer for Motherhood, and a feature length audio commentary with Katherine Dieckmann (writer/director) and Rachel Cohen (producer). The commentary track is dominated by Diekmann, who touches on the themes within the film and the technical attributes of setting up each scene. I wouldn't count it among the better director's commentary tracks, but you can certainly do much worse.

Motherhood Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Motherhood is definitely not the title I would have picked for this film. Perhaps "Mid-Life Crisis" or "Mental Breakdown" would have been more appropriate, but any connection with the real-life trials and tribulations of a motherly role seem absent from this production. You can't fault Katherine Dieckmann for setting out to make a film with lasting appeal for the mothers in the audience, but somewhere in the creative process she lost track of her original focus. Taking into account the merits of the film and the dismal quality of the presentation, this is not recommended viewing material for anyone with a high-definition display.