It's not really fair of me to subtract a star because of the ending, but I was so disappointed. The scene where Wanda allows Rachel to feel the baby kicking in her belly and to whisper her name to her brought me to tears. I should say that Stockard Channing and Peter Riegert are two of my favorite actors and I've always admired Laura Dern too. Their characters in this movie, along with Wanda's husband, were difficult to like. Richard and Rachel come across as being cold and mercenary about the baby they're essentially buying, while Wanda and her husband seem like opportunists wanting to squeeze every nickel out of the buyers as possible.
I am a fervently pro choice woman and am also a vociferous critic of the old "closed" adoption system that would have prohibited an arrangement like this one and instead dictated unhealthy and suffocating secrecy over the matter. But the ending of this movie made me so angry at the erstwhile adoptive parents that I wept in outrage. Had Rachel given birth and had problems, would they have just walked away and left her in the hospital? A child is not a commodity. I believe parents should only become parents willingly, which is why I oppose abortion restrictions and forced birth and relinquishment by birth mothers. But if you feel like a baby is something that better come out perfect, you better put your wallet back in your pocket and get a pet instead.
I am a fervently pro choice woman and am also a vociferous critic of the old "closed" adoption system that would have prohibited an arrangement like this one and instead dictated unhealthy and suffocating secrecy over the matter. But the ending of this movie made me so angry at the erstwhile adoptive parents that I wept in outrage. Had Rachel given birth and had problems, would they have just walked away and left her in the hospital? A child is not a commodity. I believe parents should only become parents willingly, which is why I oppose abortion restrictions and forced birth and relinquishment by birth mothers. But if you feel like a baby is something that better come out perfect, you better put your wallet back in your pocket and get a pet instead.