A Bitter Pill
Connie Danforth's (Alison Pill - A Song for the Season) relationship with her mum has become a little strained because her mum, Sibyl (Sissy Spacek - Songs in Ordinary Time), is a midwife and her mothers to be always seem to come first. But that all changes when Sibyl finds herself in need of lawyer Stephen Hastings' (Peter Coyote - Erin Brockovich) help as during a long birth a mother to be died and to save the baby Sybil did a c-section despite having never done one before. But it seems that others believe the mother hadn't actually died when Sybil performed the emergency c-section with a kitchen knife and instead it was her actions which killed the woman.
It is now 12 hours after I watched "Midwives" and as I look through the notes I axribbled down I find myself asking whether or not the movie was anything special. It is one of those things because I know that if I had written this review immediately after watching "Midwives" I would probably have been quite enthusiastic in praising this drama which whilst focusing on Sybil's ytpuble situation also highlights the tension between some medical professionals and the non-professional midwives whose training is years of experience rather than text books. But 12 hours later that enthusiasm for this movie has certainly dwindled as I struggle to recall some of the details.
Now "Midwives" is not a complicated movie as whilst we have this subplot surrounding Sybil being the busy mum and Connie suffering because of it the real focus is the troubled child birth and the following court case. As such we get some dramatic and hard hitting scenes during the child birth, although thankfully these are suggestive rather than graphic in nature. And then we get Peter Coyote as Hastings, using his experience to help turn the prosecutions evidence against them. The thing is that whilst the courtroom scenes are entertaining it is the actions of Connie which ends up having the most significance when it comes to the outcome. And in a way that is why I find myself wondering whether "Midwives" was as good as I thought it was when I was watching it.
What this all boils down to is that "Midwives" is a solid made for TV movie which is undoubtedly boosted by the calibre of the cast who all deliver entertaining performances. But whilst entertaining it lacks that little some thing extra which makes you think "this is a movie I need to watch it again some day".
