Apparently I'm the only person to have seen this movie applied any kind of critical thinking skills. This movie was incredibly bad; the story was muddled, the acting was vapid, and I've seen aborted second trimester fetuses better developed than the characters. What a bunch of touchy-feely mindless vaginal trite. To all you fools with your threads who claim this is a "tapestry" or "commentary on Mexican-American relations", you must be easily baffled and find hidden meanings in your alphabet soup as well. This movie should shoveled steaming into a rocket and sent into space where it can live out its half life with the smoking remains of Lenard Part 6.

The genius of this film is exactly the characteristic that many here have criticized it for: it contradicts itself all over the place and ends abruptly with no resolution. What possible resolution could you expect? Adoption is an inherently troubling phenomenon. It always involves awkward intersections of race and class, opportunity and the lack thereof, sex and sexism, law and morals. I found this film to be deeply troubling in all the ways it should be, due to the topic. I think Sayles did a brilliant job bringing together a number of very believable characters and just showing them to us for 90-some odd minutes. All have their contradictions, and none clearly speaks some unambiguous authorial opinion. The son of the hotel owner mouths his leftist analysis with his buddies, but is really a drunken loser. Rita Moreno, through her frustration with her husband's politics, voices the frustration of so many women: politics is one thing, but who'll take care of the kids? And of course, the reverse is implied as well: kids are one thing, but who'll take care of the politics? You can go through each of the characters and seem some inherent pull in opposite directions.I loved that none of the characters is entirely sympathetic, except perhaps the three homeless boys. They are all complicated and corrupted by a complicated and corrupt world that places a premium on babies and motherhood, but only under the "right" circumstances for the right women and the right kids. I was very grateful that there was no real closure at the end, and that all Sayles had to say was that, despite all, both the least sympathetic and the most sympathetic of the potential moms were about to leave with babies. Anyone who cares about kids and women should see this movie. And certainly anyone who is considering adoption (domestic or international -- either way, it's all the same issues) should see it. In sum, a very thought-provoking movie.P.S. -- Did I mention the incredible soundtrack?

I enjoy Sayles because he always gives you more than you expect. This film is about 6 women trying to adopt children from Mexico, but it is also a commentary on many aspects of a life we, as Americans, may never understand. One plot line is that of the young maid at the hotel who is raising her 2 younger siblings, and has given her own child up for adoption. Another plot details the lives of 3 brothers who talk about their mother, but appear to live alone on the streets, huffing spray paint and sleeping on the beach. Still another plot involves the son of the hotel owner, who is convinced that the adoption of Mexican babies by Americans is imperialism at its peak. His mother, who owns the hotel, reveals her feelings when she talks about how easily men get caught up in politics; her own husband is banned from the state and has taken up with a young Spanish girl, leaving her to run the hotel and adoption service by herself. Meanwhile, the viewer finds out the motivation of each woman who is seeking to adopt. The women are somewhat catty and mean, but are under a lot of stress as they have been in Mexico for 2 months already. All in all, a wonderful film. Sayles offers a true, if not depressing, view of life in Mexico, especially for women. This life is in sharp contrast with the woes of the American women, and it really makes you think about our lives here.

No resolution, no real conflict, or at least not one whose solution we see; enormous talent wasted by appalling direction: Marcia Gay Harden works too hard, ironically unconvincing. The dialogue, a few memorable lines, all derivative ("Pray for Rosemary's baby"?) Instead of a series of visuals leading to something, it was a moving slide show (with terrible camera work) without any development. Some of the situations are confusing and contradictory: when the attorney, Buendía (Armendariz), talks to his sister the motel owner (Moreno), we get the impression he is going to give Nat the baby just to get her off everyone's back. When she leaves, he states she is not getting a baby. At the end, there she is, receiving one. Uh? And Rita Moreno should never again do Spanish dialogue: she sounds as if she is reading and her punctuation is terrible, breaking up phrases at the wrong point, very disconcerting if you speak the language. She also steals scenes like a pro. In the scene where we are trying to focus on the plight of the unemployed man, she keeps tapping her fingers together, thus removing all attention from the poor sap (I wonder what he did off-camera to earn her ire, as she must know exactly what she was doing). If the point is to see the backbiting, it lacks true bite; if the point is to see what these women's lives are like, it's not deep enough. Sayles drags us in all directions and then bounces us off the wall in a dead end. 3/10