'Pieces of a Woman' Review: Vanessa Kirby Captivates In This Devastating Portrait Of Grief And Loss [TIFF 2020]

The birth of a child is an indescribable experience fueled by pure unbridled emotion that can only be felt through personal experience. It doesn’t matter how many months or years of preparation we have; nothing can prepare a parent for the feeling of holding their child for the first time. And yet, during those final few excruciating moments of child labor, sometimes life throws a cruel, unforgiving curveball tearing apart the very fabric of one’s reality. Similarly, nothing can prepare you for it, and the ramifications will alter the trajectory of your life forever. A parent’s hopeful future has just become their worst nightmare, and, unfairly, the world expects them to react, grieve, and recover in a certain way. However, no one could possibly understand what it’s like to endure such a deep and traumatic loss. Hungarian filmmakers (and real-life partners) Kornél Mundruczó and Kata Wéber clearly understand all too well as they draw from personal experiences to paint a poignant portrait of grief. “Pieces of a Woman” is not for the faint of heart; it’s a genuinely heartbreaking, intimate, unflinching, and harrowing look at one woman’s unimaginable loss and her process to recovery.

Set against the backdrop of a chilling Boston winter, Martha (Vanessa Kirby) and Sean (Shia LaBeouf) Carson are moments away from experiencing the joys of parenthood before their home delivery goes awry at the hands of a flustered midwife (Molly Parker). What follows is Martha’s year-long journey navigating her grief while working through fractious relationships with her husband and her domineering and manipulative mother (Ellen Burstyn). While all of this is happening, the public trial of the midwife looms over Martha as the woman is vilified in the court of public opinion.

Putting into perspective how society dictates and judges the most personal decisions, actions, and emotions a woman can face, “Pieces” is nothing short of devastating. Vanessa Kirby is astounding. Her performance is raw, nuanced, relatable, and remarkably authentic. Over two hours, Kirby expertly teeters from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other, all while savoring the more complex feelings that accompany a woman who’s experienced a stillbirth first hand. Martha isn’t even given a second to process the horrors of what’s happened before being violently confronted with the emotions and opinions of others. There’s no privacy or respect for her mind and body, highlighting a larger issue of women’s rights when it comes to an act so deeply personal to them. She’s daughter to a controlling matriarch who constantly critiques as she attempts to construct the woman worthy of her family. Maneuvering the pieces of Martha’s life behind her back, Ellen Burstyn delivers a subtle, yet powerful performance. While frustratingly passive-aggressive, she delivers an emotionally charged and empathetic monologue (arguably her FYC clip) that explains why her traumatic upbringing informs her personal views on the aftermath of her daughter’s stillborn. This climactic confrontation between Martha and her mother is at the heart of “Pieces.” It shows the damage and sadness of a fractured mother-daughter relationship while allowing Martha to learn from the mistakes of her mother.

“Pieces” opens with a visceral stress-inducing 30-minute one-take nightmare that gradually builds intensity until delivering a resounding gut punch before cutting to the title card. This prologue is masterfully directed as Mundruzcó channels the humanity and technical artistry of Alfonso Cuáron. In fact, throughout the entire film, Mundruzcó and Wéber confidently tap into Martha’s humanity, creating a numbing and melancholic atmosphere that personifies her internal pain. They maintain focus and precision on Kirby even in the most crowded spaces as she’s pulled, manipulated, gaslit, and told the acceptable time and method in which she’s allowed to process her loss. Unfortunately, this is also where the film peaks purposefully so. All of the narrative pieces assemble in this early climax before splintering into four distinct subplots, all tying back to Martha. All momentum screeches to a halt as the rest of the film acts as a quiet and somber but nonetheless tumultuous journey to recover.

At times, “Pieces” can get too bogged down in the gloomy melodrama, story threads can leave more to be desired, and Sean especially, while brilliantly acted by a committed LaBeouf, lacks the depth needed to feel less detached; but this is Martha’s narrative as she reclaims her own agency. “Pieces of a Woman” examines the tragedy of an unthinkable loss through the lens of the one most emotionally and physically affected by it; an introspective slice of life that shows us sometimes time can’t heal all wounds, but we can and must be allowed to cope in our own ways. [A]