Pieces of a Woman 2020
Pieces of a Woman feels less like a film, and more like an open wound you’re forced to touch. The labor sequence is raw and intense. One long, uninterrupted take that traps you inside the room, inside the panic, inside the breathless beauty and terror of bringing life into the world. The cuts are invisible, the camera feels like a witness who doesn’t blink.
And it’s the performances that make it hurt even more. Vanessa Kirby’s screams aren’t theatrical, they’re primal. Dito siguro nakita na she deserved to be cast as Susan Storm. Shia, on the other hand, looks exactly like every husband in delivery rooms. Trying to be strong and composed, while being scared and confused on the inside.
Then the score enters. Ang smooth at ang ganda. The score doesn’t dramatize, it embraces. It makes the scene more beautiful and intimate. When Vanessa starts pushing, it becomes something almost animalistic. Raw, visceral, like a force of nature inside a small room. Napainom ako ng tubig just to water down the intensity.
And when the baby’s head slowly emerges, napaduwal ako. Buti nalang wala ako nung pinanganak si Arya dahil feeling ko mahihimatay ako. The whole time, I was holding my head, pulling my hair, trying to release the tension. It’s overwhelming, realistic, and almost too much to watch.
Then, in a single breath, the beauty turns into horror. The miracle shatters in seconds. The baby turned blue, silent. My heart stopped. I remembered Arya. When she came out grey, and they had to give her oxygen. Yung pag iyak ko nun na parang wala nang bukas.
Suddenly, it’s no longer fiction. It’s your life reflected back at you. Same din yung naramdaman ko with Shia nung pinanganak at namatay si Luna at Mina. Ang dami kong tanong, if it could have been prevented? Who’s at fault. Could I have done something? Kasalanan ba namin? Bakit ganito? By the 40 minute mark, I was already crying. This film is like looking into a mirror. It reflects too much.
The dialogue stops, but the soft music lingers. And inside, something familiar starts to echo. The bus scene with Vanessa looking at children beside her, I’ve felt that too. Ganun din ako pag nakakakita ng twin naiimagine ko sila Luna and Mina. What if? What if life didn’t take them away? How much chaos they would bring into our home and yet, even in the mess, they would still be my peace.
The film shows that some relationships don’t explode, they quietly wither. Their house motif reflects their dying relationship especially the plants. Their home becomes a silent battlefield. Hallways that used to echo with warmth now feel hollow. The walls look colder, the colors drained. Their relationship isn’t breaking, it’s rotting quietly. You can smell distance in the air.
And I get Shia’s character. I always thought if I lost a child, I’d be like him. Drowning in sorrow, spiraling back into old addictions, trying to numb the pain by any means. Relapsing from one vice to the next. But by the grace of God, I didn’t. And watching him spiral, I saw my almost. I saw the man I could have become.
And the film doesn’t offer relief, it throws us into the courtroom, where grief turns into confrontation. It is brutal. Vanessa stands there, forced to relive every contraction, every scream, every second her daughter existed and died. People reduce her trauma into evidence, timelines, medical procedures. And then that monologue is not about winning, but to release. Not to accuse, but to forgive.
And that’s where the film shifts: from grief to growth, from death to something that tries to live again. The apple seed metaphor, subtle but perfect. Apples rotting, seeds growing. Life from decay. Pain birthing something new. Hindi ito tungkol sa paglimot, kundi sa pagpapatuloy.
Pieces of a Woman doesn’t offer comfort. It doesn’t try to fix grief. It tells you grief isn’t a chapter, it’s the book you wake up to every day. You don’t move on, you learn to live there. Grief doesn’t shrink over time, we grow bigger around the grief, reducing how much it dominates our life.