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LOSING ISAIAH is a moving and well-acted drama that takes a hot-button issue to an emotionally manipulative level but will involve you to the point of taking sides. Halle Berry plays a crack addict who, one night desperate to get high, leaves her newborn baby in a pile of garbage and when she returns after her mission, finds the baby gone. The baby is rescued and is eventually taken home and raised by a sensitive social worker (Jessica Lange) who decides to raise and adopt the hyper-active, crack-addicted baby as her own. In the meantime, Berry gets clean, wants her baby back and takes Lange to court to regain custody of her son. This is an involving story that provides a balanced account of an emotional issue and if you're really paying attention, you will find your alliance with the protagonists in this story switching from time to time. Lange is solid, as always, and Halle Berry works hard at being convincing as a reformed junkie. Strong support is provided by Samuel L. Jackson and LaWanda Richardson (the real-life spouse of Jackson)as Lange and Berry's attorneys, David Straithern as Lang'es husband, and Daisy Prince as Lange's daughter. No matter how hard you try to remain neutral, this film will suck you in and find you taking sides.

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.

Here is a film that had the makings to be great. Performances are excellent all around, and the premise is very involving and potentially controversial. I thought they handled Berry's character well, showing us (in fairness) both the possibility for recovery of an addict, and the possibility, ever-present, of relapse into that lifestyle. The characters were believable and motivated, and the situation inherently dramatic.

The trouble is that they obviously couldn't decide how to end the story without committing to a point of view which would alienate some of the audience. Instead, they end the story without resolving it, in a most frustrating and cowardly way.

It's a shame to make such a good film, and then turn it bad.

Around the time that Jessica Lange won an Oscar for "Blue Sky", she starred in a pair of unrelated movies. She appeared in "Rob Roy" as the title character's wife, and in "Losing Isaiah" as a social worker who adopts a black baby.

This movie shows a stark contrast between the life of Lange's character (a middle-class white woman) and the life of Halle Berry's character (a recovering crack user in the ghetto). Things grow tense during the trial, especially in the racially-charged discussion between the characters. In the end, it's not a great movie, but like Lawrence Kasdan's "Grand Canyon" looks at the state of race relations in the 1990s, and presents all the issues surrounding adoption. Worth seeing.

Yes, for all these years I had been wishing that Samuel L. Jackson and Jessica Lange could co-star...and it turned out that they done so years ago!

Director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal are the parents of Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal.

A comment was made that this movie has a bad ending. This is a TRUE story that happened in San Antonio, Texas. Although Hollywood and most movie goers want a neat and tidy ending, this does not portray REAL LIFE. Indeed, this movie portrays a real situation and does it well. Makes you think a lot about our child adoption system. What is best for the CHILD is what should be the focus, however obviously biology is the only significant thing that our courts consider. This shows the child wanting and being more comfortable with the adopted family.

This was an excellent film. Halle Barry showed some real acting chops. Previous to this movie she was just in party movies, playing on her looks. She acted up against Jessica quite well.

However, the courtroom scenes were quite biased to Halle's situation. Not sure how much of the courtroom scenes were based on the real transcripts.

Jessica was excellent as always!

Well done about a subject that needs to addressed more. But if they were all on Dr. Phil I imagine the good doctor would point out to Halles's character that she seemed to want her son back as much if not more so, for herself and her own healing.

When 2 different races make a child should it go to the one race he/she resembles or the one who is a better parent to the child? I do not like this movie. The color of the skin shouldn't matter. The best interest for the child no matter what color, is what is the best interest and stability for the child...

Just from reading the plot of Losing Isaiah, I felt the film is better suited to a Lifetime movie. But after seeing the film, I may have to change my mind because on the whole, it is a very powerful and impacting film about child custody and the best interests of the child. The film would have been so much better, expect the film didn't have an ending at all. I did not like the ending and that took down my rating a notch or two. But film will strongly affect everyone, especially those who tend to be politically correct.

Stephen Gyllenhaal's film is about a custody battle over an abandoned kid between two women. One woman is a former black crack addict who is now sober and leading a better life, but not after abandoning her kid in a drug haze. The other woman is a white social services worker who has a well-off family and a nice place to live. Now the crack addict named Khaila decides to sue to get her child back.

This film is strongly acted. Jessica Lange gives a hell of a performance as Margaret Lewin, who shows unconditional love to the boy. Halle Berry also delivers a potent performance as Khaila, the grieving mother who also truly cares for her son. Samuel L. Jackson makes a good appearance as Khaila's lawyer and David Strathairn was decent as Margaret's wife.

Overall, Losing Isaiah is a great movie but it could have been more if it wasn't for that horrid ending that left me with even more questions. But there is no denying the emotion the film provokes and the sympathy that is created for each woman. Each of them has their faults, but both of them truly care for the kid which makes this custody case even more heart-wrenching. I wasn't even able to choose a side. But this is a great film and I'm surprised I haven't heard of it until now. With a better ending, the film would have been perfect. I rate this film 8/10.

Absolutely wrenching. Don't watch unless you're ready for biting misery. Much scenery chewing.

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.

Seth Margolis' novel becomes middle-of-the-road drama about a white woman and her husband fighting a black woman in court over the custody of the black woman's baby son, whom she left in a dumpster two years prior to cleaning up her life as a homeless crack-addict. Uninventive presentation plays like a dulled-out TV-movie, and the two leading actresses (Jessica Lange and Halle Berry), while well cast, can't do much more than fill these stock roles with their individual charisma and personalities (they can't invest much heart into the proceedings when the screenplay is all processed emotion). The outcome of the case (and the reasons for the outcome) seem dated already, and the concluding events are standard, predictable scenes of coming to terms. ** from ****

Firstly this movie could see like a boring drama but it's not. Why ? Because it involves you. The subject is very good and acting is very realistic and impressive especially the white mother's.

You can see and understand the love between a mother and son in this movie. ALLAH (The God) created a very powerful instinct inside mothers' hearts. I saw this instinct in this movie so I really liked and affected me much.

This movie can make you cry, don't go after fake love with selfish people, love is very near of you : devoted and faithful mothers of us and their love to children but never forget only the true love is for and from ALLAH.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who didn't like Losing Isaiah. It tells the very tired tale of one's birth mother being more important - no matter the circumstances - than the consistent guardian. The tagline is actually, "Who decides what makes a mother?" Obviously, one judge in one court in one county. If a drug-addicted, dysfunctional woman who is unfit to care and assume responsibility for a child, decides years later that she wants her child back, she should absolutely be awarded custody - despite the fact that her child has been lovingly and safely cared for by a wealthy and reliable couple. I'm not spoiling the end of this movie; I'm simply reminding you that Hollywood has taken that argument time after time, film after film.

Halle Berry plays the birth mother of the title character. Her baby boy is adopted by Jessica Lange and David Strathairn, but despite wonderful, loving parenting, our hearts are supposed to go out to Halle when she sues for custody after several years. Her argument: since Halle threw her baby in the trash can, she believed he was dead and didn't give her consent to have him adopted. Can you believe this? She was addicted to drugs and threw her baby in the garbage. There is nothing she can do to excuse or make up for that. I don't consider myself a heartless person. I'm thinking of the good of the child, and any judge with an ounce of integrity would make this an extremely short movie. Since it's nearly two hours long, you can assume the film takes Halle's side.

The funny trivia is that Halle wanted to inject The Method into her performance so she didn't bathe. For the life of me, I don't see how a little extra sweat and stench was supposed to make her a better actress. The audience certainly couldn't smell her, so they were only (unfortunately) treated to her acting. I cannot in good conscience recommend this movie.

I've seen this movie on BET a few times and I like it.

But...

How could the baby seem and look ok when it's older, later on in the movie we see him at his "other mother's" house and he seems fine.

His birth mother, Halle Barry, was a crack addict then he should have had something wrong with him. And how could his "other mother" conincidentally call the baby Isahiah?

There wasn't a nametag or nothing to know what the baby's name is so she just SOMEHOW knew the baby's name...

I'm just a nitpicker...

I reccommend this even though most people give it bad reviews...