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What's the point, "Baby"?
Casa de los Babys (R) (95 min.) - In an unidentified South American country, five American women and one from Ireland wait impatiently for news that their adoptions of children have been approved. They spend their days sunbathing and talking and eating while talking and then talking more.
Any other filmmaker might have them championing their causes in opposition to bureaucracy or exposing some black market shenanigans. But this is John Sayles, the patron saint of independent filmmakers who can make any movie he wishes since he doesn't spend Hollywood's money. Why he decided to make Casa de los Babys, or at least why his reasoning isn't clear on screen, is a mystery.
The adopters are designed as a cross-section of Oxygen network womanhood: Daryl Hannah delivers the best performance as Skipper, an athletic sort whose three biological children died. Marcia Gay Harden is Nan, the den mother type complaining about anything and lying about everything. Mary Steenburgen plays Gayle, who we learn in a casual moment is an alcoholic (although that doesn't contribute anything to the plot). Lili Taylor is the woman who will raise her baby without a father. Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Jennifer, who's cracking under the tension of waiting. And Susan Lynch is Eileen, the Irishwoman who isn't as well off as the rest but might make the best mother of all.
This is a film that is ostensibly about nothing but not because nothing is happening. Each woman gets a scene or two to share her hopes and insecurities and a few are truly well-written and performed. However, the sad stories and gossip shared by these women needs more than 95 minutes to develop into something more than actors' workshop exercises. We're just getting involved when the movie abruptly ends.
Perhaps because he senses the women aren't enough to base a film upon, Sayles detours into the lives of local citizens: the proprietor of the hotel where the women stay for months, her son who detests the notion that white people are raiding his country's population, a pregnant teenager, a trio of street urchins huffing spray paint when they aren't scrounging for money, a man depending on a lottery ticket to fulfill his dream of visiting Philadelphia.
Any of these locals might appreciate being adopted by the women and taken someplace more comfortable. Maybe that's Sayles' point, that the women's problems are minor compared to the poverty and frustration around them. Certainly that isn't as eye-opening or inspired as the themes of Sunshine State and Lone Star, two of Sayles' most recent and best works. Each frame of Casa de los Babys is watchable, although at the conclusion viewers may wonder why they bothered. C+
- STEVE PERSALL, Times film critic