As busy I get from time to time, I find that I can't see every movie under the sun, leaving my friends and colleagues to fill in the blanks for me. As poetically as I think I wax about movies on this website as a wannabe critic, there are other experts out there. Sometimes, it inspires me to see the movie too and get back to being my circle's go-to movie guy. Sometimes, they save me $9 and you 800+ words of blathering. In a new review series, I'm opening my site to friend submissions for guest movie reviews.

TODAY’S CRITIC: Lafronda Stumn

Lafronda Stumn is a student at Madisonville Community College and intends to graduate with an Associate's degree in Associate of the Arts. She plans on earning a Bachelors Degree in Motion Picture Studies and English at Wright State University. Her favorite Directors are Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Spike Lee, and her favorite actors are Al Pacino, Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, and Halle Berry. Lafronda contacted this page looking for a place to get published and I enjoy giving people that very kind of opportunity. This is her 29th guest review for Every Movie Has a Lesson. Welcome as always, Lafronda!

HER REVIEW: Pieces of a Woman

The controversy surrounding Shia LaBeouf as a bully and abuser to his ex-biracial girlfriend FKA Twigs has put a damper on the film Piece of a Woman before its early Netflix release in January. Yet many people may have a negative reaction off from seeing the film because of the Times Up Me-Too movement. Put Shia aside. The core of this story is Vanessa Kirby’s. She is at the center and on that basis. The film falls or carries based on her performance.

The film stars Kirby as Martha, a young woman married to a recovering drug addict and construction worker named Sean. Martha is about to give birth to their baby girl during the early stages of the movie. Problems begin when the midwife she wanted wasn’t available, so there is a substitute. There are complications at the home birth and the baby dies. Pieces of a Woman is about how the couple mourns for their daughter and copes with their marriage at a crossroads, as will this tragedy tear apart their marriage.

In addition, several scenes have powerful overtones of grief, one including when Martha is talking about at a funeral parlor misspelling her daughter’s name on the tombstone. To boot, Martha’s mother (Ellen Burstyn) tries to reassure her and discount her grief.

Likewise, another effective scene is when Sean pleads with Martha not to donate their baby to science. Sean wants to talk about their loss and to have sex, but Martha is cold towards him. Martha’s mother tries to have a better relationship with her son-in-law. Besides, Martha has a great fascination with apples, her favorite food. Further, apples are dominant over the course of the film. The symbolic fruit conveys a beginning of things that can grow, be observed, and can start over again, creating things of beauty that continue to grow larger and stronger over a life cycle.

Also, Burstyn has an impressive scene pleading with her daughter to testify in the malpractice case with the substitute midwife by telling her to see how she overcame a tough childhood. By the same token, Kirby gives a virtuoso performance and she towers over the film. Her acting is subtle creating a quiet empathy for her character. One glaring flaw, however, is that a major character leaves far too soon and leaves a lot of unanswered questions of that character and their relationship.

In addition, the score by Howard Shore is fine with a touch of softness and melancholy, especially in the scenes of Martha mourning her child internally to impressive effect. The film is well directed. Kornel Mumndruzcco does an outstanding job in directing Kirby when she is alone dealing with her feelings. Once again, the scenes with her mother as a mother herself who can overbear while dealing with issues of mental illness of old age.

The scenes in the courtroom are written and directed with an intense process of purpose, especially the testimony that Kirby’s character gives in the film. The outcome will have you thinking whether Kirby’s character does the right thing in the end. It begs a question on feeling sorry for the midwife, Martha, or both. Pieces of a Woman makes the audiences choose for themselves what the right decision was for Martha and the Midwife. There are no straightforward answers.

RATING: ***

CONCLUSION

Thank you again, Lafronda! You are welcome anytime. Friends, if you see a movie that I don't see and want to be featured on my website, hit up my website's Facebook page and you can be my next GUEST CRITIC!