MovieChat Forums > Mother and Child (2010) Discussion > All of the characters are very odd peopl...

All of the characters are very odd people - Spoilers


Karen - She looks up the guy she had sex with when she was 14? Really? She has sex with him again (even though he is married) and then just walks away from him after telling him she never had feelings for anyone else like she had for him. Later she marries Paco even though it seems their relationship was going nowhere early on.

Elizabeth - She is basically a vindictive, manipulative whore for most of the film. She pointlessly has an affair with her neighbor and plants evidence of it in their apartment in an obvious attempt to destroy their marriage even though the woman is with child. Of course we never see what really happens. She seduces her boss for no apparent reason. He offers her a promotion and she turns it down so it wasn't self-interest. She decides to leave him but then of course the near impossible coincidence happens when she is spotted by Paul's daughter through a window. Absurd. That leads me to Paul.

Paul- His immediate, incautious agreement to have an affair with Elizabeth is unrealistic. He was a big time lawyer running a prestigious firm, surely he understood the potential scandal of having an affair with a subordinate young enough to be his daughter. He learns she is carrying his child, he tracks her down, walks into her office and claims he wants to be with her and raise the baby even though he mentions he has someone else waiting in the wings. He leaves without another word. If he truly loved her and the child he would have followed up on the matter. HE would have raised the baby after Watts died on the operating table. Instead he just disappears from the story. Was he not at all curious about what became of her and his child?

Paco - No reason for him to be attracted to Bening, she treats him like crap right off the bat and is basically miserable even after they are together.

Lucy - She was my favorite character until she goes into a tirade towards the end about what a burden the adopted baby is. That seemed to come from nowhere.

Joseph - He suddenly decides to opt out of the situation even though he knew all along his wife couldn't have kids of her own. Another reaction that comes out of nowhere to create some drama for a feeble plot.

Sofia - She would have quit the lousy maid job. It was down to one day per week and Karen treated her horribly, including accusing her and her daughter of theft. She was mainly there because she liked the mother. Once she was gone there was no reason to stay on and take the abuse.

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No, kroyall, the odd one is you. Did you actually watch the movie? Did you understand anything about it?

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I have to agree with kroyall. These people were ODD. Almost all of them displayed behavior that had me baffled. But that doesn't mean it was a bad movie. I was totally sucked into it and don't regret watching it at all.

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Paul understood the fractured connection between Elizabeth's need for independence and her need to be loved which is why his purpose was only to offer a traditional family life. He knew it was best to let her make the decision. His approach was thoughtfully executed.

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Good explanation about Paul's encounter with Elizabeth just before she had the baby. In a different setting, if he would have followed-up on Elizabeth, it would have been a different movie, since he then would have had a legal claim to the newborn baby.

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I would not dismiss your comments lightly. You made some good observations about the characters of this movie. On the cold-surface, you are correct on many points, but this is, after all, a movie, and the characters, as written, with all their faults, made for an excellent movie.

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Excellent review.
And, Yes, I made it to the end of the movie.

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I will agree that Karen and Paco's relationship didn't seem believeable at all but overall I thought it was a good movie. I kept thinking that the baby was going to be white and that would change things quite a bit. LOL! I suppose they didn't want to add all of that extra stuff to the movie but that's what kept me on the edge of my seat because we didn't know who was the father of Elizabeth's baby. However, not sure why Lucy was your favorite character, she seemed kind of annoying. To me, the blind girl was the best character in the film. She had the biggest handicap of them all and seemed the most normal.

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This was a character study. The reasons for the “behaviors” were all related to “adoption issues” that each character had. Here is my opinion.

Elizabeth had her focus on her biological mother, and she stated that in her imagination the father didn’t exist. She had no way to connect with men on any other level then sex. She even mentions at the beginning that her adoptive father died when she was young. She went after her boss… and told the neighbors he was her “father”. That is what attracted her to him as he was an authority figure aka her boss and that she had no father figure in her life. The neighbors she resented because they were having the normal life she didn’t think she deserved. Her rage displayed itself in trying to sabotage them. She set her life up in a way that she could not have a family of her own. Instead of the attitude of “if you can’t beat them then join them” she rebelled against “normalcy”. She wanted to be unique and too strong to need her mother – because she didn’t get a choice. She comes to realize it when she befriends the blind girl and becomes pregnant.

Karen resented life because she felt like she gave her own life away when she gave up her baby. She was resentful at just moving on hence the closure she feels at the end.

Lucy became so focused on the adoption process itself and pleasing the bio mother (Ray?) that she forgot to think about what happens after I get the baby. Also she was suffering from grief. The baby she thought she would get didn’t happen.

All of the characters actions come from their adoption experiences IMO.

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I agree 100%. and it seemed like Karen changed over night. She all of a sudden not only was more understanding to Sofia's child but she played with her and loved her.

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David Traversa. So it seems you find that in real life "Characters are NOT odd"...well..., do you live on this earth or you just came over for a short visit?

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surly anyone, when under a microscope, are odd and weird.

would U say u were normal? I am sure if we focussed on every aspect of your life, scrutinised your choices, explored every habit/idea/interaction u had..we would think u were odd and weird too

point is....everyone is odd and weird when their life comes under the magnifying glass. these people are odd- as are all human beings that's what makes us special

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