"Mothers and Daughters": The Secrets of Women Unveiled

"Mothers and Daughters": The Secrets of Women Unveiled
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

2016-05-12-1463026034-9829519-ScreenShot20160511at8.54.55PM.png
Photo Credit: IMDB.com

Mothers and Daughters explores the relationships among generations and the complexity of family structures in today's world of divorce, adoption, teen pregnancy, and women who must balance their gift of childbirth with the careers they have fought to build.

The characters exemplify the distinction between power and invulnerability and show that even the most prestigious of us have a cross to bear.

This film, would not likely have been deemed acceptable nor even been able to acquire funding had the script been presented only a few decades earlier.

The film's female led cast, rather than present women as neurotic or victims of circumstance, portrays them from positions of power not to decide what is done to them, but certainly to decide what they do in response. As such, the women fulfill the roles of both saviors and the saved.

Central to the story is what it means to be mothers, having made pacts with nature to protect children that will almost certainly outlive them. Conversely, the story explores what it means to be a daughter: protected yet smothered, free yet alone, and known and accepted for one's past yet unable to be understood for their present.

These themes permeate the film and unravel in the most cliché yet natural and relatable ways. Rather than seeking to surprise, the film focuses on suspending disbelief by presenting stories that while maybe not personally relatable are not outside the audience's frame of reference.

The film serves like a composite of diaries of the women it portrays. Open and honest in way that people cannot often be except when alone. Yet, the film does not rely on a narrator speaking to that, which cannot be seen. The storylines and the acting makes this unnecessary, an incredible feat for film, which by its visual nature often leads many stories incomplete and open to interpretation.

The prime obstacle of the visual arts has been overcome, and the stories spoken by women among each other are finally being told to the world.

This article was originally published by Los Angeles Entertainment News

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot