Product Details

• Format: NTSC
• Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
• DVD Release Date: April 13, 2004
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0028O9YS0
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #621,440 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Casa de Los Babys, October 24, 2003

By 

W Lang (Larkspur, CA United States) - See all my reviews

I found this movie to be very touching and real. It isn't John Sayles best movie, but we've come to expect something totally stunning from him every time. It is however very much worth seeing. It gives a very gritty feeling of being in Mexico waiting to adopt a baby. The women who play the main characters do great acting. They play a cross section of very genuine personality types. No plot, just the drama of daily life in an emotionally volatile situation. Brings up all sides of the issue of adopting babies in foreign countries, including a very moving portrayal of the life of homeless street children.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Complex political and social tale that can be viewed on many levels, June 3, 2006

By 

Linda Linguvic (New York City) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Casa de los Babys (DVD)

Written and directed by John Sayles, this is the story of six women who go to a Latin American country to adopt babies. As in other films by this master of cinema, it is not a simple story with a simple ending. Instead, it is a complex political and social tale that can be viewed on many levels.

There is poverty in the country and hard working people. Many of them work at a luxury hotel, owned by Rita Moreno, now actually 73 years old, speaking only in Spanish and looking very nipped and tucked and prosperous. Her brother is the local lawyer. Her son is a political radical who hates the fact that the babies are being taken away. The six women who must wait several months for their babies come from varied backgrounds and each has her own story to tell. There's Lili Taylor who's tired of waiting for a relationship to blossom and wants to have a baby right away. There's Daryl Hannah, who looks gorgeous and works out and is into massage and health food. Later we find out that she's been through three traumatic birth experiences with babies who just didn't make it. There's Maggie Gyllenhal, who's only 24 years old and has gone through lots of fertility procedures to no avail. There's Susan Lynch, who comes from a large Irish family but who is unable to conceive. There's Mary Steenburgen who is the oldest and most religious of the group and is a former alcoholic. There is also Marcia Gay Harden who is indeed the "ugly American". She complains about everything, tries to bribe the lawyer and comes across as racist. And then there is Vanessa Martinez who plays a chambermaid who has given up a baby for adoption several years before.

Another important element in this film are all the "extras", the real people from Acapulco, where this movie was made. There are also some important small roles given to some of the little boys who live on the street. I found their plight the most heart wrenching of all and wondered what happened to them after the film was made. We see them living in cardboard boxes, washing windshields and stealing. And then we see them sniffing paint thinner. It made the whole subject of cross-cultural adoption even more poignant because if the babies weren't adopted, they would likely wind up like these poor homeless boys. In one scene one of the women gives a child's book to one of the boys. He's easily 8 or 9 years old, but he can only look at the pictures, because, like his companions, he has never learned to read.

We see some flashes of the babies who are waiting for adoption but basically but we never actually get to see them with their new mothers. Wisely, John Sayles stayed away from that kind of syrupy sweetness. Instead, he gave us a hard look at the many perspectives surrounding this film.

There were no less than three 20-minute extra featurettes on the DVD. I learned that the actresses lived together in one big house during the filming and how wonderful that bonding experience was for them. I learned that John Sayles made a massive effort to show the Latin American point of view. In fact, he even mentioned that he had starting thinking about making this film when he made "Men With Guns" which is a chilling film about cruelty and death. Casa de los Babys on the other hand, is poignant in its own way but it addressed many of the same issues. I applaud his sensitivity and the many dimensions he is able to capture through his art. The problem with these three DVD features, however, is that each of them had most of the same footage. I kept watching and watching, hoping that there would be some new material, but it was the essentially the same material, just reworked in different ways. I would suggest therefore, that if you do see the DVD, that watching only one of these small features would be sufficient.

This is a good film. And an important one. It made me think. And that is good.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One Of John Sayles Best Films, June 8, 2005

By 

Alex Udvary (chicago, il United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Casa de los Babys (DVD)

"Casa de los Babys" is one of director John Sayles best films. It is about six American women who go to Mexico in order to adopt children. The women are played by; Daryl Hannah (Skipper), Lili Taylor (Leslie), Mary Steenburgen (Gayle), Marcia Gay Harden (Nan), Maggie Gyllenhaal (Jennifer), and Susan Lynch (Eileen).

In the opening scene of the movie we see what looks like a hospital with children and a nurse taking care of one of them. The next image we see is of small children sleeping in a carboard box being chased away by a man who claims the box is his. And finally we meet the women how are waiting for a baby. When you see all three scenes played out together it has quite an impact. First we have helpless children who are being taken care of, then we see children who have no one, and women who want to take care of children but our stuck in red tape. Sayles keeps shuffling these images around in our heads until the point where I started to think the movie's supports the actions taken by these women. Because, if these women don't take these children, what kind of life is in store for them anyway?

"Casa de los Babys" though tries to present both sides of the issue. We see the reaction some people have to the idea of Americans coming over and taking their children. One man asks, how would they (Americans) feel if we came over and took their children. And then we see small chidlren playing with used condoms, and wondering where they are going to sleep.

But the movie doesn't present these women as imperialist. As the movie goes on we slowly start to gather who these women are. Sayles has written some truly heartbreaking moments as some of the women describe their failed attempts at having a baby. One woman lost three at childbirth. They are not trying to take advantage of anyone. They merely want to have children to take care of and love.

Sayles, with such movies as "Sunshine State" and "City of Hope" reminds me of Robert Altman. Both men like t make these large ensemble pieces where they juggle around various characters who in unexpected ways impact one another's lives. It's a hard kind of movie to make but Sayles always seems more than ready to perform the task. If you haven't seen one of Sayles' movies, I'm not sure this is the place to start but even so, I doubt many people will say they were not somewhat touched by the movie.

As I watched one of the special features on the DVD it seems the movie is against the action of people from one country coming to adopt children from another. But I don't think Sayles reaches his objective. I had the opposite reaction.

Bottom-line: One of John Sayles best films. The acting by the cast is great with Hannah, Gyllenhaal, and Lynch standing out to me. A very touching warm movie.