Casa de los Babys | |
---|---|
Directed by | John Sayles |
Screenplay by | John Sayles |
Produced by | Alejandro Springall Lemore Syvan |
Starring | Marcia Gay Harden Maggie Gyllenhaal Daryl Hannah Susan Lynch Mary Steenburgen Lili Taylor |
Cinematography | Mauricio Rubinstein |
Edited by | John Sayles |
Music by | Mason Daring |
Production companies | IFC Films Springall Pictures |
Distributed by | IFC Films |
Release dates |
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Running time | 95 minutes |
Countries | Mexico United States |
Languages | English Spanish |
Budget | $800,000 |
Box office | $475,940 |
Casa de los Babys ("House of the Babies") is a 2003 drama film written, directed, and edited by filmmaker John Sayles. It features an ensemble cast, including Marcia Gay Harden, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Daryl Hannah.
The film tells the story of six white American women, impatiently waiting out their lengthy residency requirements in an unidentified South American country before picking up their adoptive babies.
The film was first presented at the Venice Film Festival on September 5, 2003. [1]
The film was screened at various film festivals, including the Toronto International Film Festival, Canada; the Istanbul FilmOctober Film Week, Turkey; and others.
It opened both in New York City and Los Angeles on September 19, 2003. The first week's gross was $36,456 (nine screens) and the total receipts for the run were $475,940. In its widest release the film was featured in 71 theaters. The motion picture was in circulation 10 weeks. [2]
Critic Stephen Holden, writing for The New York Times, liked the film message and wrote, "Casa de los Babys, adheres to the same essayistic format as many of its forerunners...Despite its emotionally loaded theme, the film is a scrupulously suds-free examination of motherhood as it is viewed in first- and third-world countries. The closest it gets to misty-eyed is in its panoramic shots of wide-eyed Latino infants who will soon be transported from a nation mired in poverty to a land of plenty ... the movie's even-handed portrayal of two cultures uneasily transacting the most personal business resonates with truth." [3]
Critic Roger Ebert lauded the film and wrote, "Sayles handles this material with gentle delicacy, as if aware that the issues are too fraught to be approached with simple messages. He shows both sides; the maid Asuncion gave up her baby and now imagines her happy life in El Norte, but we feel how much she misses her. The squeegee kids on the corner have been abandoned by their parents and might happily go home with one of these rich Americanas. Sayles sees like a documentarian, showing us the women, listening to their stories, inviting us to share their hopes and fears and speculate about their motives. There are no answers here, just the experiences of waiting for a few weeks in the Casa de los Babys." [4]
Critics Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat also liked the film's message and wrote, "The overall tone of Casa de los Babys promotes the spiritual practice of openness, which is the ability to see clearly, without preference or prejudice, and with empathy. Sayles continues his special mission of exploring the nuances that go into the creation of cross-cultural tensions and misunderstandings." [5]
John Thomas Sayles is an American independent film director, screenwriter, editor, actor, and novelist. He is known for writing and directing the films The Brother from Another Planet (1984), Matewan (1987), Eight Men Out (1988), Passion Fish (1992), The Secret of Roan Inish (1994), Lone Star (1996), and Men with Guns (1997).
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Marcia Gay Harden is an American actress. Her breakthrough came in the 1990 Coen brothers' film Miller's Crossing. For her portrayal of artist Lee Krasner in the 2000 biographical film Pollock, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She received a second Academy Award nomination for her performance as a troubled wife in the drama film Mystic River (2003). Her other notable film credits include The First Wives Club (1996), Flubber (1997), Space Cowboys (2000), Mona Lisa Smile (2003), and the Fifty Shades film series (2015–2018).
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Happy Endings is a 2005 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Don Roos and starring Tom Arnold, Jesse Bradford, Bobby Cannavale, Steve Coogan, Laura Dern, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Lisa Kudrow and Jason Ritter. The film's plot uses interconnected storylines to tell three stories of Los Angeles natives that center around love and family. This plot structure led to the coining of the term "hyperlink cinema", by Alissa Quart in her review of this film for the journal Film Comment.
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Ironweed is a 1987 American drama film directed by Héctor Babenco. Adapted to the screen by William Kennedy from his similarly named Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, Ironweed stars Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, with Carroll Baker, Michael O'Keefe, Diane Venora, Fred Gwynne, Nathan Lane, and Tom Waits in supporting roles. The story concerns the relationship of a homeless couple—Francis, an alcoholic, and Helen, a terminally ill woman—during the years following the Great Depression. Major portions of the film were shot on location in Albany, New York. The film received mixed reviews and was a box-office bomb, but Nicholson and Streep received Oscar nominations for Best Actor and Best Actress, respectively, for their performances.
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