If you have suffered through the stresses and rollercoaster of emotions inherent to adoption and waiting for a baby, you'll identify with this story. If you are my husband you'll wonder why not one person dies in a fiery car crash.

Casa de Los Babys really works the all star cast including Daryl Hannah, Mary Steenburgen, Susan Lynch, Marcia Gay Harden, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Lili Taylor. This is not a classic movie, but it is one that will help those experiencing infertility and adoption to feel just a little less alone. Set in South America, the film centers on 6 women waiting to finalize adoptions. As is common in South American adoptions, they are forced to remain in the country for a time while they await placement of the babies they desperately want.

Each of the women handles the bureaucratic delays differently. Some become angry, others resign themselves to the wait. Along the way we see the grinding poverty that leads to the need for so many adoptive homes and the machinations of those who are looking to make a buck off of the big business that has become adoption. While we cringe at those who seem to be selling babies, we are left to wonder if even these low-lifes are somehow doing the babies a favor in getting them into wealthy homes. Are these crude attempts to profit from adoption any more morally repugnant than the more sophisticated high priced adoption services within our own countries?

Casa de Los Babys is no morality tale although by mature any film on international adoption is full of moral dilemmas. Film maker John Sayles does an excellent job of exposing the raw emotions and social issues of international adoption. Sayles manages to allow us to observe and feel the issues without making them more or less than they are. We know that international adoption often happens because the birth parents are too poor to provide for the child. Sayles asks, but does not answer, the question we quietly ponder, "Is it better to save the children in their own culture or to remove them from that culture to an easier life in a richer country?"

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