Pieces of a Woman (2020) on Netflix
Martha and Sean plan a home birth in Boston for their first child. When their midwife cannot come, Eva takes her place, and the delivery takes a dangerous turn.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.0/1060,720 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes75%
Trailer
Plot summary
Martha and Sean are a young couple in Boston awaiting their first child. Sean works on a construction crew building a bridge across a river. Elizabeth, Martha's mother, is a wealthy Holocaust survivor, and Sean resents her; she buys the couple a minivan. When Martha goes into labor at home, Sean calls the midwife Barbara, who cannot come and sends Eva instead. Martha labors through nausea and pain, and at ten centimeters Eva finds the baby's heart rate has fallen dangerously low. Sean asks whether continuing is safe, and Eva tells him to call 911.
Cast
Show all 15 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Pieces of a Woman (2020)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Pieces of a Woman began as a stage play by Kornél Mundruczó and Kata Wéber, a couple who had experienced a miscarriage during pregnancy; Mundruczó read a scene Wéber had already titled "Pieces of a Woman" and encouraged her to turn it into a family drama, first staged in Warsaw.
- The opening childbirth scene was filmed six times over two days with a single camera; it was the first scene shot for the film and took up over 30 pages of the script.
- A real baby was used for the birth, with a CGI umbilical cord: the baby was held by its mother just outside the apartment and carried in off-camera for the moment of birth.
- The production had been turned down by bigger names before Vanessa Kirby was cast as Martha; the day after she read the script she flew to Budapest for a two-hour meeting with director Kornél Mundruczó.
- Netflix campaigned for the film's cast and creators for awards contention but removed Shia LaBeouf from its publicity after assault allegations against him were made by his former girlfriend FKA Twigs in late 2020.
- In about half the takes of the birth scene, including the one used in the final cut, Shia LaBeouf genuinely struggled to remember where the phone prop was placed as his character Sean searches for it to call 911.
- Vanessa Kirby, who had never given birth, wrote to obstetricians about realism and was invited by Claire Mellon to observe on a labor ward, where she witnessed a birth she said she could not have played the part without.
- As well as being based on Mundruczó and Wéber's play, the film incorporates fictionalized aspects of the trial of Hungarian midwife Ágnes Geréb, a real case the pair drew on.
