Die andere Mutter

I've read the comments and the opinions from the various people on this board.I started used drugs after my son was born and I lost custody.My mother got custody.I worked hard to clean myself up and to be able provide a home for my son.Even after I was clean my mother wouldn't let me see my son,even though the court had ordered it and subsequently,my son didn't know me.I fought in court for over a year.I had to prove to a lot of people.I did win in court and my son came home that day.It was not easy and raising him has been a struggle at times.But just because a mother did drugs,it does not mean that her child is better of without her.It takes commitment.I went onto Nursing School and graduated and my son just graduated high school.We can turn our lives around and do what's in the best interest of our children.My son wants nothing to do drugs(his words),because he knows what it almost took us away from each other forever.I'm proud to say he's enrolled in the Army and we have a great mother/son relationship.Don't knock us because we made mistakes.Sometimes by making those mistakes,we become far better parents.I know I did.

I come from a family of 3 children, 2 adpoted and have to applaud this movie for doing a good job of pointing out that being a parent isn't about giving birth or "donating" sperm. A child always belongs with a family that loves him- it shouldn't be about color, or wealth or any other irrelevant factors. It's about responsibility and love. Any one can have a baby, not everyone can be a parent. There are certainly some stereotypes and the movie goes to the extreme point of a mother who literally throws away her baby to a family that is white, wealthy and kind to the child. The movie does this for dramatic purposes and succeeds in provoking a response from the many viewers who have seen this movie, as reviews will show. The movie also manages to enrage without even engaging the color issues. When Khaila's character tells her lawyer, "but I'm his mother" and insists on her "parental rights" it isn't even about color but about what is important about being a mother. Her character thinks that giving birth gives her rights over this tiny human being, (well played by Marc) when even children should be viewed as human beings with rights themselves. Parents who view children as possesions are wrong. I am "white" my husband is Mexican- does our child belong with one or the other? Khaila's lawyer says, "black babies belong with black mothers." Is that what we want to teach? Segregation? Doesn't work for me. Babies of any color belong with the people who take care of them and love them. That's what being a parent is.

Try watching this movie sometime with a white woman who is the adoptive mother of an African-American child. I happen to baby-sit such a family and watched the movie with the kids' mother. I don't know how she sat through it without throwing something at the screen-not that this is necessarily a criticism. This film is very thought-provoking, though I think for the wrong reasons. The main focus is all about color and whether people should raise children of different races. Jessica Lange's character had a small speech in the courtroom about how love makes a family more than race, but it was just glossed over and the focus of the film went right back to race defining families. Maybe I just see this differently because of my close association with a family where the parents and one child are white and the other child is not, but family is not about race-corny as this may sound, it really is about love and support. The ending, as some other reviewers have said, is very wishy-washy. My viewing companion and her husband, who joined us at the end, liked it because they want to have a good relationship with their daughter's birth mother. I agree with them on that, but if the movie is going to deal with legalities so much, it should resolve those legalities at the end of the movie.

Losing Isaiah is a movie that attempts to deal honestly with the issues of interracial adoption. Its portrayals are most always right on the mark. Halle Berry is almost unrecognizable (of course, her natural beauty gives her away) in the first part of the film. She is compelling as the "gone straight" crack addict that threw her son away. Jessica Lang gives a strong performance as the social worker who dotes on Isaiah to the point that she almost forgets her own daughter. The best part of this movie, however, is the ending, when love for the child pushes all other differences to the side. For all the movies that waste our time, this one helps to make up for it.

"Just because you f***ed some junkie in a street corner doesn't make you his mother!" / dialogue from Losing Isaiah.

The film starts with a drug addict (Halle Berry, who is surprisingly good.) goes around in one of Americas less glamorous blocks with a screaming baby. But the withdrawal symptoms becomes to strong and she lies the child in a container. When she wakes up the next day she can't find Isaiah. She is devastated. (Isaiah has been taken to the hospital when a couple of dust men found him.)

Jessica Lange, Hollywood's best actress, plays the successful doctor that sees a little crack baby lying and screaming on the ward and thinks "Wouldn't it be nice to have one of those around the house?". She adopts the little fellow and raise him together with husband and daughter.

The film jumps between Lange's family that take care of the kid and his biological mother, Berry who is building up a new drug free life. She eventually finds out that her child is alive and, of course, then wants him back. Lange doesn't want to let him go. Berry then hires a tough lawyer (Samuel L. Jackson) and trial it is.

An interesting dilemma. And the film handles it good, very good. You really want to know who will get custody and which of the two mothers who gets the ending frame (and then 'wins' the film). The ending and the ending frame unfortunately is a cowardly compromise.