Lindsey Bahr
” Pieces of a Woman “ begins with a tragedy. Martha (Vanessa Kirby) is expecting her first child with her partner Sean (Shia LaBeouf). For a few minutes, we see them in the final stages of preparation for life with a baby: She’s saying farewell to her co-workers and packing up her things; Her mother is signing the papers on a practical minivan; And they’re hanging the final photos up in the well-stocked and tastefully neutral nursery.
Then, suddenly, Martha is in labor and for almost 30 minutes the audience is given a front row seat to the most realistic and graphic depiction of a home birth ever put on film. It’s a difficult labor — Martha is almost drunk with pain — and it’s made even more stressful by the fact that their midwife is unavailable and a replacement is sent. Then it ends in death.