PIECES OF A WOMAN

 

With awards season just about to kick into gear, the start of a new year means those film that have done the rounds at various festivals for the past number of months are released in rather quick succession. Pieces of a Woman is a film Netflix hope will bring them home some awards, particularly in the acting categories, and it's certainly a film that doesn't stray away from telling a difficult story.

When a young mother's (Vanessa Kirby) home birth ends in unfathomable tragedy, she begins a year-long odyssey of mourning that fractures relationships with loved ones in this deeply personal story of a woman learning to live alongside her loss.

There's no real way to discuss Kornél Mundruczó's Pieces of a Woman without first discussing the film's opening sequence. It's such a tragic and traumatic start to the film that, by the time the title card appears on screen after half-an-hour, I felt like I needed to pause the film to have a breather and compose myself. Mundruczó brings it to life with such realism and Benjamin Loeb's cinematography is to be lauded here because the long take only builds the suspense to unbearable levels at times while the close-ups of Vanessa Kirby's Martha throughout the sequence really make you feel her panic building.

What follows may struggle to live up to the standard of the film's opening but it does manage to tell a story about a woman learning to live alongside her loss in a respectful and touching manner. Kata Wéber's sreenplay features some rather powerful moments that include fractured families and poignant moments of refelction.

At the forefront of Pieces of a Woman is a fantastic lead performance from Vanessa Kirby. It's one that has rightly put her in the race for all the Best Actress awards out there and I'm sure a lot of it will be down to her performance in the film's opening however, there's more to her performance than that. It's a cold portrayal of a woman going through an unimaginable loss that impacts the lives of others surrounding her and Kirby is just brilliant, particularly during a monologue towards the film's closing moments.

This is undoubtedly Kirby's film but there is also some stellar support from the likes of Shia LaBeouf and Ellen Burstyn, the latter certainly adding a touch of melodrama to proceedings. Expect to see her name a lot this awards season as a result.

Pieces of a Woman is most definitely a film that doesn't look to hide away from a difficult subject matter and it's something that the film has to be applauded for. Vanessa Kirby's performance is the real star here though and one that will spoken about for years to come.

Verdict: ★★★★