God Bless the Child

I think there's no better actress out there than Mare Winningham. It seems that almost always she plays a victim, maybe because she's not jaw-dropping beautiful. But she's believable in every role, and in this one she takes you with her on a downward spiral where the only consolation is her own dogged innocence. Helps you realize, once more, that the people you don't stop to look at twice are each, no less than the striking ones, a complete human world.

I usually hate made-for-TV movies, but this one is excellent (yeah, and extremely depressing, but it's eye-opening). Mare Winningham is first-rate as a single mother caught in a cycle of homelessness and poverty with her young daughter after they're abandoned by the father and thrown out of their apartment. The scripter offers no easy way outs or fairy tale endings for these two and the film is surprisingly tough and real. It also does an admirable job illustrating how finding employment, a home and a sense of dignity are next to impossible if you're stuck out on the streets starting from scratch. It's really one of those movies with a most important, life-affirming message--don't for a second take what you have or the people in your life for granted. Harrowing stuff.

For the video inquiry--It was released on video (from WorldVision), but yeah, it's a b*tch to find. (I got my copy used at a video store).

Score: 9 out of 10.

Mare Winningham plays the role of a single mother who must struggle without a job and a home with a young child. The film is memorable because she must make the most difficult choice that any parent can make of whether her only child should remain with her on the streets, in rat-infested apartments, in shelters, after friends and family can't help them out anymore. This issue is not new but as old as time itself where parents must struggle to make the most difficult decision of turning her child over to foster care and the state or live on the streets. The final scene is just heartbreaking so have your tissues ready to wipe the tears away.

I watched this movie on Lifetime about eight years ago, and it still left an impression on me even still today. The struggle with homelessness is not a fun one, for I know first hand. Mare Winningham gives and excellent and very, very sad performance in this film. It just seems that all the odds are against her, and she's left to make some very rash decisions. You just want so much to help people like this out in the time of need, but have to stand by as helpless as they are. This movie should be recommended as a standard for all to watch, as we are all one paycheck away from the shelter, or even the doorways in our streets. This should not be happening in the greatest country the world has ever known.

I have a fairly conservative point of view, and when the landlord came into the picture, I was interested to see what they would do with him. They did such a superb job with everything else....

IMO, the landlord, albeit clearly the most unsympathetic character in the whole film, was handled pretty well. If you want to see him simply as "the heavy", you can, but I recommend that you watch this again and think about it from his perspective too. Some of his comments were purely bigoted and prejudicial, but some of them had validity. He had given a woman a break and let her move in without even paying, and in return she created a problem for him. (How are the rats going to go away? That takes WORK, which costs MONEY to PAY someone to make it happen. That MONEY comes from RENT, which had not been paid! So who should pay for it?) If we just look at the dilapidation of the buildings, we can get a bad attitude toward the landlord -- but ultimately, how is that any different from his prejudice toward his tenant and her broken-down life? What do you know about him and what problems he's facing in his life? Just because he runs the place, you assume he's rich and rolling in extra money, and therefore should pay from his pocket to fix all of everyone else's problems?

I've had homeless people in my building, and I eventually had to kick them out. I gave them a chance and they threw it away with drug and alcohol abuse, fights, property damage, midnight parties, etc.. In the end, after all the legal costs, unpaid rent, repairs, delays to make the repairs, etc.... I think I would have done just as well to simply leave those units empty! However, that was those people. Not everyone homeless is interchangeable -- and not all landlords/managers are, either. So everybody ought to take a breath and think before assuming they know all about the other person from nothing but a few bits of demographic info.

So, about the movie in general...

This is one of the best movies I've ever seen, because it doesn't try to come up with some starry-eyed "answer" and push that in our face. It just says look, see the bind that a lot of people find themselves in, and then it leaves the viewer to think about that and make of it whatever they will. That's a degree of respect for the viewer which I'd like to see more often.

As others have said, Mare Winningham is truly great in this role. She has exactly the right face to be this woman: a pleasant, but very real, very normal face (not a cover girl who would be out of place), but so capable of showing us what's inside at every moment. What a gem she is. (I got a laugh from the hater who trashed her in another review. Jealous much, punk? BTW, I'm a man, and I rated this a 9/10. So suck on that.)

Also, the little girl is now 34 years old as of 2014, and still acting, and still beautiful. So there's your happy ending! :-p

I don't think I've ever given a movie 10/10, but this one gets a 9. The minor flaws it has are outweighed by some very powerful acting and directing along with intelligent writing, and few movies pack this much of a wallop.

Parting thought: it's not just money that is needed, in dealing with poverty and homelessness issues. I gave my formerly homeless tenants a lot of breaks; they threw them away. Other issues, not dealt with, led them astray even when they had a chance to make a new start. They needed other kinds of help which money alone would not provide (and some people might be entirely beyond help, at some point in their life; in those cases, we should think about society and how it can be improved for future generations). Regardless of what you may think will help, I suggest that understanding the status quo is the beginning, and from what I know of the world, I think this movie is tremendous in building that up.