Despite an Oscar win for COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER and five other nominations, I still feel Sissy Spacek is one of the more underappreciated acting powerhouses in modern film. She is rarely if ever less than excellent, and this riveting and thought-provoking TV movie is no exception. I am not overly familiar with midwifery, and it's one of the few topics about which I have no particular opinion, but this film piqued my interest enough to consider doing a little research to gather more information. This is one of those movies I would love to watch with a group and discuss afterwards. I won't give anything away about what verdict is rendered, but it really left me in a moral and emotional quandary - and there are very few films I've seen recently that have made me soul search and really think hard about a subject this much. On a much more superficial level, it gave me such cinematic joy to see a reunion, however brief, of Spacek and Piper Laurie here. They, of course, were both Oscar nominated for the best horror film of the 70s - CARRIE. This is an exceedingly well-made project that reminds us that all TV movies are not Hallmark drivel and Lifetime sentimentality.
