User Reviews

Warning: spoilers.

This film drama is factually based on the surrogate birth of what the media and justice system opted to call "Baby M" - The film is set in the 1980's. The surrogate mother in real life was Mary Beth Whitehead, and the receiving parents (who donated US$10k EXPENSES) were Bill and Betsy Stern.

Mary Beth agreed to become artificially inseminated by Bill Stern. Mary Beth, by contract agreed to carry the child, and at the time of birth, give the baby up to the receiving infertile wife Betsy.

All parties signed surrogacy contracts.

BUT - Although as soon as the baby was delivered it was handed to Mary Beth - uh uh - as she held it, you could see in her heart she had decided she was not about to go through with it all.

Then after much emotional wrangling and pleading, Mary Beth was allowed by the Sterns to have the baby for the 'weekend' - this was the begnning of a dash to Florida to M.B.'s family, where a year avoiding and court battles came about, eventaully, after a court order, which culminated in the court order demanding she give up the baby. Mary Beth's husband sneaked off with the baby out of the window, during the commotion.

I hope that's enough spoilers! (and to get you into the film of course) but it does show equally all parties involved in the mess, and warns of the problems that the depth of the human soul can be embroiled.

The above is but the START of the film! - Do give it a chance - I guess we were lucky here in the UK as we get chunks of such films even on commercial channels in half hour slots - we can obviously see that its pieced together from a mini series with fade to blacks.

The film is driven by pure emotion and inner turmoil, it was a success being nominated for many awards - and winning one.

Warning: potential spoilers.

This drama is the story of the Baby M case from the 80's. It is the story of how Mary Beth Whitehead became a surrogate mother to Bill and Betsy Stern. Mary Beth agreed to become artificially inseminated by Bill Stern, carry the child, and once the child was born, to give up that child to Bill and his infertile wife Betsy to raise, for a fee of $10,000.00. The two families signed surrogacy contracts. However once the baby had been born and she asked to see the baby and held it (a fundamental mistake) she decided she could no longer go through with the surrogacy agreement (to give the child to Bill and Betsy to raise). Thus, began a year of kidnapping and court battles, which culminated just after the baby's first birthday. I feel this movie was a success because it gave an account of the facts on BOTH sides. It presented the story in a straight-forward and un-biased manner, showing raw human emotions and the power plays from both sides.

For anyone who enjoys true stories mixed with drama, this is a movie you should enjoy.

Two seemingly decent couples become friendly as they make an agreement on surrogacy that causes heartbreak when it's broken and the two couples turn against each other and become ruthless in their efforts to win custody. The fact that this actually happened is like opening up a scandal sheet and watching it all come to life. Perhaps not the public's business morally, but legally a precedent that needed to be explored for future cases.

The happily married mother of two, Jobeth Williams, has agreed to be a surrogate, but when she's unable to conceive with the first sperm doner, she meets up with the upper class John Shea and Robin Strasser. The first encounters are positive, but when Williams successfully conceives, she's agitated by continued questioning and advice from Shea and Strasser, and after giving birth has a breakdown and decides she wants to raise the child, gaining the support from husband Bruce Weisz.

It's easy to be attempted to take sides, but after seeing how everyone acted, I couldn't choose either side, finding Williams unstable and Strasser meddling, Shea self righteous and Weisz completely crass. So from there without looking the actual case up, I watched mainly to see how it all unfolded, and like that open rag magazine drawn into something that wasn't really my business, yet too fascinated to look away.

Not able to like any of the four leading characters, I found the acting amazingly good, with the raw nerves oozing out of Williams and Strasser remaining noble in spite of scenes where she literally grabs at the baby. A far cry from her role as Dorian on "One Life to Live", and very layered. The men are excellent, loyal to their spouses, but they're pretty much there to be supportive, although Shea is drawn more strongly than Strasser in how he shows his emotions and comes off as a human.

As attorneys on the case, Anne Jackson and Dabney Coleman are very strong, with Jenny Lewis less annoying than normal as the older daughter desperately helping her mother. I wanted to see more of Strasser's fellow soap vets Nancy Addison as William's sister (great in a scene with Strasser) and Lesley Woods as her mother. Perhaps a bit too long, in two parts, and going past three hours, but rarely dull even though I didn't like the feeling like I was being a metaphorical Gladys Kravitz in eavesdropping on something very private.