Losing Isaiah

The Queen Mother of Families in Crisis, Jessica Lange, is well-cast in this heartfelt story that explores the thorny subject of adoption, and in particular inter-racial adoption, and class prejudice in modern "white" USA.

Halle Berry plays Khaila, a crack-addicted black woman who in a drugged stupor abandons her child in an alley. The next morning, she goes looking for tit but it has gone, eventually to be adopted by a white social worker, Margaret Lewin (Jessica Lange) and her husband, Charles (David Strathairn).  After a number of years  Khaila has gotten straight and when she accidentally discovers the fate of her child, sues for custody (Samuel L. Jackson plays her lawyer).  Get the Kleenex ready.

Some may find the film a tad simplistic, almost telemovie-ish in form, and the plot is undeniably too convenient in its unfolding with its ending particularly contrived, but it is not intended to be an sociological study but rather is a fictionalization of  the issues at stake (it is based on real life cases) and it is involving without being manipulatively sentimental . With such emotionally-volatile material and fine performances from Lange and Berry, if a good cry is what you’re after you won’t go wrong with this baby.

FYI:  The film was based on a novel by Seth Margolis and scripted  by Naomi Foner, then wife of the director and mother to Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal.

 

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