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Pieces of a Woman takes place over a period of a number of months, starting on September 17th, where mum-to-be Martha (Vanessa Kirby – Mission Impossible: Fallout) buys a new, spacious car with husband Sean (Shia LaBeouf – The Tax Collector), ahead of their impending new arrival, as it’ll come in handy to have a bigger set of wheels.
Martha is about to give birth, and wants to do so at home. However, it’s not a straight ‘out comes the baby’ scene, but a long and protracted one-take scene which lasts quite some time, even requiring them to call out an ambulance for assistance. Sadly, their joy at the birth is short-lived when the midwide notices the baby is having problems breathing.
Events then move forward to October 9th, where Martha’s back in work, and seemingly hasn’t talked to anyone about it before returning, just telling one man in the office that her time off has come to an end. Ms Kirby does a superb job of portraying a woman who just wants to return to normality, but isn’t giving herself time to grieve, or deal with trying to find the cause of the baby’s death.
I don’t want to just list what happens in Pieces Of A Woman, though, because that’s for you to discover, but safe to say, Vanessa Kirby is superb as the woman who just wanted everything to go right, and now is mentally hiding from the world, while Shia LaBeouf wants to talk about what’s happened, but she can’t deal with it.
Ellen Burstyn (Wiener-Dog) has a good turn as Martha’s mother, Elizabeth, with whom she’s always at odds, and there’s a cool jazz score in one scene, with piano at others.
I will also add that there’s the question of whether to donate the baby’s body to medical research, instead. Personally, that’s something I’d like to do with mine when the time comes. After having a number of medical procedures since soon after birth, which all saved my life, I think it would be a good thing to do in terms of giving something back to the medical establishmnt.
Pieces Of A Woman is on Netflix from today, January 7th, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD.
Check out the trailer below:
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 126 minutes
Release date: January 7th 2021
Studio: Netflix
Format: 1.85:1
Rating: 7.5/10
Director: Kornél Mundruczó
Producers: Aaron Ryder, Kevin Turen
Screenplay: Kata Wéber
Music: Howard Shore
Cast:
Martha: Vanessa Kirby
Sean: Shia LaBeouf
Elizabeth: Ellen Burstyn
Anita: Iliza Shlesinger
Chris: Benny Safdie
Suzanne: Sarah Snook
Eva: Molly Parker
Photographer: Steven McCarthy
Judge: Tyrone Benskin
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.