El primogénito

"First Born" is a clichéd but watchable thriller.

Laura (Shue) is a dancer who gets pregnant and moves into a country home with her husband (Steven Mackintosh). After the pregnancy, she starts getting post-partum depression. She uses (Tom Cruise's) advice to not go on drugs. She starts seeing and believing things that aren't real.

Elisabeth Shue puts in a good performance, but the script and plotting are lacking. It's basically the same scene for 90 minutes. Laura goes crazy and no believes her, Ad Nauseum. The ending, while interesting, can't bring the movie up to snuff in time.

Overall, "First Born" is a decent movie, but the script, idea and execution could've been way better.

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When the dancer Laura (Elizabeth Shue) feels sick after a presentation, she finds that she is pregnant. Her husband and successful executive Steven (Steven Mackintosh) decides to buy a huge house in the suburb to raise their baby daughter Jessica in an adequate environment. Laura changes her lifestyle, feels nervous alone with the rats in the house and accidentally kills their dog with poison. Later Steven hires Mrs. Kasperian (Kathleen Chalfant) to help Laura in the housework and with the baby, but Laura believes the old woman wishes to harm Jessica using witchcraft. Laura has a breakdown, and when she recovers, her mother moves to her house to help her with the baby. During the night, Laura decides to get rid off a doll she found in the house changing their lives forever.

"First Born" is a weird and disturbing movie, and talking to some friends of mine I noted that this is the type of film extremely unpleasant for women. The beautiful Elizabeth Shue is thinner and has a good performance, but her character is not well developed, therefore it is not possible to know whether she is a mother with postpartum psychosis or simply a mad woman. I liked this film, but I do not dare to recommend it especially for potential mothers. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Filha das Sombras" ("Daughter of the Darkness")

Reading the other comments, I certainly see why people say this movie is lame. It does drag on with seemingly no point and just when you think something big will happen... it doesn't. But you are able to tell that this movie was made like this on purpose. All though may not have been the best idea it has a real life feel to it. Its shown through the perspective of "Shue" the whole movie, a lot of unanswered questions and confusion left at the end is because she never had them answered.... and honestly all of the questions are answered if you pay close enough attention there is just no "WHY" but you can figure the "HOW" out. Her hallucinations and the way her mind goes downhill is believable and the way things weren't always what they seemed, which disappoints the movie fan in you, really portrays something that could happen in the real world. This movie is good because it gives you that eerie feeling of real life where as if it was laced with a bunch of special effects and corny situations made strictly for fear and not the story line, it would have been much worse in my opinion.

Elisabeth Shue plays a dancer whose career is suddenly put hold when she becomes pregnant and upon delivery of the baby via cesarean section, things take a turn to a somewhat dark and often disorienting turn.

Shue's performance in First Born is fabulous and the ending was a twist that was somewhat expected, but still a bit of a shock. The camera is following Laura throughout the movie. we see only her perspective of how things play out which by the end, leaves you with many unanswered questions.

Overall, a very good film.

OK well, I've just seen the movie. First I expected a lot from it, it had a promising beginning, dark and creepy paranoia stuff, my favs :) But at one point, I've lost it... And since I'm totally annoyed by this ignorance of mine, can PLEASE someone explain couple of things for me? I get it that the movie was based od PPD, but how exactly does that witchcraft woman fit in? And the ending, what the hell was that?!! Last I concluded (at least I thought I was on the right track) was that she bought that witchcraft book, 'fond out' that the lady was doing some kind of black magic over her and she got lost of that baby doll.

I sincerely thought that the doll was the last piece of that voodoo crap and we'll have a happy ending. But what the hell happened when she buried that doll? And what happened to her, precisely- with her memory, brain or whatever...? I'm furious and I don't get it! So please, if anyone has a good and (more or less) logical version of the possible ending, it would help a lot :) Than U!!