as it happens, this clip about the cinema i was in being part of some sort of federation(?) of european cinemas was shown just before the movie, and all i could think about was how perfectly fitting it proved to be. this was a totally european movie. there were no odes to motherhood, no moralizing, no sympathetic characters, just a story resulting from a meeting of self-interests. melody, we later found out, was abandoned by her mother, and this creates conflict but not the easy cliches; she is in flux, torn between the influence of various factors, and the quick pacing of the movie doesn't allow for melodramatic exploration. if anything, i'd say the movie glosses over this, but it works because this ultimately isn't its focus. this isn't really a movie about the moral or legal aspects of surrogacy, though they make an appearance. it isn't a movie about class (in fact, though it starts with the portrayal of homelessness, it doesn't explain melody's later access to an apartment). it isn't even a movie about deep, engaging characters - we only know the 2 leads and we know little about them except for what is revealed as part of their interaction, and there is still much we don't see. for example, we don't know why emily is a single mother, why she waited for so long, why she got pregnant so late, or who the father of either baby was. did melody never ask? it doesn't quite matter, because this is ultimately not about them, it is about non-sexual relationships between women, especially motherhood. (on point, the baby too is a girl.) there is, for example, talk of adoption, and not of that of the unborn child. it is not a movie about pregnancy; there are none of the usual lines about what the pregnancy feels like, does to her body or mood, no prenatal classes or shopping for baby stuff, nothing. what there is instead is shots of pregnant and wishing-to-be-pregnant bodies. there are a lot of shots of their bodies, wordlessly showing the passing of time, the evolution and involution time brings (including the opening: pre-pregnancy melody in fetus position, naked, with the ribs showing.) it is one of the best things about the movie. had this been a movie straight up about surrogacy, it would have marched on until the time of birth. instead, there is a twist, not utterly surprising, but radical, sweeping the table off all buildup towards the resolution. for a long stretch, the movie is no longer focused on the baby at all, showing instead a change of roles. it is a very harrowing succession of scenes (the one at night with melody waking up and checking for breath gave me chills), ending in melody again hitting the closed door, from the other side. the bulk of the movie is over. what's left is the birth. the movie does not disappoint: motherhood is not instantly the most amazing thing ever; when melody wakes up to the crying baby, she freaks out. it was great. notes: what i respected most about the movie's lack of easy moral stances is that the jarring point of view of the brother, an ugly intrusion in this already delicate construction, out of place in the moment and seemingly included and discarded gets vindicated by reality. and, at that point, there was no room left for an "i told you so." the close "intimate" camera also results in lots of shaky shots from behind people's heads. the switch between french conversations, english conversations, and french-english (i.e. when a character chose to speak her own language or the language of the other) was perfect.