The Baby Dance

I continue to be impressed with Laura Dern's range. i've been a fan since Enightened, but I wasn't totally aware of how much range she has, how warm she can make her characters, how natural despite not necessarily playing them subtlety. She's an amazing actress, and this is actually one of her finest performances that I've seen. It's full of great pathos, great expressions that sort of tell you everything you need to know while not saying anything explicitly, Her character here could've come across as a caricature for most of the running time with a lesser actress, but Dern instantly makes her relatable and likable, and sort of empathetic towards her. That's a truly great mark.

What a refreshing experience to watch a film where simply superb acting tells the story. Overblown scenes of emotion are almost absent,despite the sensitive subject matter,and yet this has so much more effect. The film has a documentary like quality, which gave me the feeling that I was quietly accompanying the characters on their difficult journeys, as well as learning about different ways of life in another country & community. I felt that this film was not made with the intention to bias the viewer towards any particular party, each of whom had extremely difficult decisions to make & situations to deal with. I like it when I don't have to have 'the moral of the story' rammed down my throat & am left to open ended pondering, which lasts until long after the end of the film.

From time to time simply portrayed scenes of family life add beauty, contrast & poignancy to the story line. It may seem far removed, but 'The Baby Dance' reminds me of some of the finest examples of Iranian cinema, such as 'The Apple',where in the midst of seeming catastrophe, life goes on, children play...

I was pleasantly surprised that what I thought was going to be a rather trashy 'Tug of love baby' drama, turned out to be a moving & superbly crafted work,which I would like to watch again.

I agree with missygoldstein@aol.com about what kind of parents they would have made. I mean this speaks a lot about what kind of parents they would have made. What if they would have had a child of their own and later on it had health issues, would they abandoned it? Or what if the child they would have naturally was born with problems, would they give it away? What if this baby they were going to adopt that they decided not to in the end was healthy and later on developed a life altering condition? If you consider a child yours, it's not just yours when it's healthy, it's yours when it's sick and if they thought they would get a pure healthy baby when they mom smoked and didn't take her vitamins they were crazy. Also did they think they could adopt, love and raise any child and never face any health or medical issues? I guess it was suppose to be healthy and stay healthy until it went off to college then any health concerns were then the kids problem. It's like "Well, we raised you healthy, now your not so you're on your own."

Stockard Channing stars in yet another tele-movie. Her performance is very good as usual and she deservedly picked up a Golden Globe nomination. Laura Dern gives a fine performance as a pregnant woman who wants to give her baby up for adoption. The movie shows the struggles of these two women and there is a twist at the end which did not surprise me.

Didn't care for this one, way too slow and the subject was uninteresting. Why do folks want to adopt, especially from a pack of mobile home misfits? One look at these losers and I would have been hanging an exit. This trash couldn't afford a whiff of fresh air but they always had their beer and ciggies. Not a bad production, I just found all the people involved very irritating.